Mississippi lawmakers are closer to reinstating a supervised house arrest program that was overlooked last legislative session.
The House Corrections Committee on Thursday approved a bill that authorizes the state Department of Corrections to charge inmates $75 a month to participate in the house-arrest program.
The House will consider House Bill 637 in the next few days, said Corrections Chairman Bennett Malone, D-Carthage.
He said the monthly fee that inmates pay went from $50 to $75 in the bill to ease the department's $13 million deficit.
Mississippi has lost $490,000 since lawmakers allowed the program to lapse in 2004.
Another bill allowed the 1,400 inmates on house arrest to continue in the program, but the state could not charge the fee.
Inmates will pay for the six months the program has stalled, Malone said.
Huggins said the higher fee may not survive his committee should it be approved by the House and sent to the Senate.
The state pays a daily average of $8.51 per inmate to manage the program, Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said.
The average daily cost for housing an inmate in a state prison is $44.30, according to a report released Thursday by the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review. That includes the cost of paying debt service on state prisons. The per inmate daily cost in private prisons is $32.84, Epps said.