FRANKLIN, LA - As St. Mary Parish pays $200,000 per year to house prisoners in municipal jails, a 120-bed facility sits vacant atop the parish courthouse. Renovations totaling about $1 million were made to the seventh-floor jail about three years ago when the parish's 300-bed facility in Centerville reached capacity.

The parish has since been paying Morgan City, Patterson and Berwick $14 per prisoner per day to house pre-trial inmates. The arrangement left the jail operating fund with a $278,000 deficit in 2005. The parish formed a committee Wednesday to study the costs of jail operations.

“I think the parish council's idea is that, by opening up the seventh-floor jail, it will alleviate the need to use the local jail space in the municipalities, or at least it will substantially reduce the number of prisoners housed there,” said Chief Administrative Officer Bo LaGrange.

“Hopefully, the cost of the seventh-floor jail will be less than the municipal jails.”

The parish also has discussed opening the seventh-floor jail as a juvenile facility. Juvenile inmates are housed in St. Martin or St. James parishes. Sheriff David Naquin said there are two main obstacles to opening the seventh-floor jail. One problem is a shortage of qualified personnel to staff it, he said.

The recreation yard for the seventh-floor jail is on the roof of the courthouse. The stairwell leading to the recreation yard is also a fire escape, and fire marshal rules state the gate separating the jail from the rest of the building cannot be locked. Naquin said staffing has been a problem for the sheriff's office since hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“People are having a hard time at every level of business finding personnel going to work,” he said.

LaGrange said the parish could solve the gate problem by installing an automatic lock tied to the fire alarm. The gate would only be unlocked when the fire alarm went off, he said.

“If the sheriff tells us he's ready to occupy it tomorrow, whatever issues that need to be addressed would be addressed,” he said. “It's not a problem that cannot be solved.”

LaGrange said the newly formed committee will examine the costs associated with operating the seventh-floor jail.