Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette The Houghton County Jail is looking to put an emergency plan in place to combat overcrowding at the jail.

HOUGHTON — The Houghton County Jail is looking to put an emergency plan in place to combat overcrowding at the jail.

The jail has been over the 28-person capacity for the past month, Sheriff Joshua Saaranen told the county board at its April meeting.

He filed the first step to declare an overcrowding emergency on March 21, after a 10-day period that saw inmate numbers range from 29 to 37. As of Friday, there were 31 inmates at the jail.

The declaration through the County Jail Overcrowding State of Emergency Act requires notifying local judges, the county prosecutor and county board chairman.

“We anticipated the numbers to go down, but they haven’t,” Saaranen said.

Saaranen said he will probably send the formal overcrowding declaration to judges on Monday. That would give courts the ability to refine sentences for some low-level offenders, allowing them to be released when they’ve served a certain portion of their sentence.

“The courts work with us to divert low-level misdemeanors, traffic-type misdemeanors to keep the numbers down,” he said Friday.

The work camp could hold 28 to 30 inmates. However, only two current inmates meet the eligibility standards, which would not solve the overcrowding, Saaranen said.

After the initial declaration, Saaranen is hoping to work with the courts to adopt a population management plan.

This would not be the first time the county has had to invoke the Emergency Powers Act. Former Sheriff Brian McLean declared an emergency in 2017 after consistent overcrowding.

Saaranen said he can empathize with the cramped conditions being faced by inmates.

“I can see where tempers can flare, things can happen,” he said. “In the past, what we’ve seen is an increase in assaults in the jail, suicide attempts.”

The heightened conditions also put additional strain on staff. The jail is overseen by one or two officers at a time.

“Having to manage 30-plus people’s time is pretty cumbersome on them, as well as the other duties they have to do, and having to respond to the assaults and suicide attempts is burdensome as well, mentally and physically,” he said.

The county has made several attempts to pass a millage to build a larger facility to replace or augment the more than 60-year-old jail. It recently purchased the First Apostolic Lutheran Church property on Sharon Avenue to serve as the potential site of a new jail and other county functions, such as the district court.

In other action, the board:

• Heard an annual report from Equalization Director Jaikob Djerf. The county’s state equalized value was nearly $1.824 million, up 15.7% in personal property and 8.7% in real property. Total taxable value in the county was $1,251,088,356, an increase of about 8.9%.

Houghton, Portage Township, Hancock, Calumet Township and Torch Lake Township had the highest state equalized value and highest total taxable value in the county.

• Approved a 10-year co-location agreement with the state for installation of county equipment at the state’s Public Safety Communications System tower at Centennial Heights.

• Approved $87,300 in purchases recommended by the county’s 911 advisory committee. The largest part, $49,983.65, will go towards 70 dual-band pagers for local fire departments. They will also receive 80 APX 4000 radio batteries, at a cost of $9,568.40. Another $7,500 will go towards a portable 800-megahertz radio for the Jeffers High School school resource officer, who was hired through the sheriff’s office for the part-time position.

The county also approved a one-time fee of $12,188 to REMC #1 for installing PremierOne dispatch software for all Houghton County police and sheriff cars. Houghton and Keweenaw counties had been the last in the state using an older system. The county will also pay $8,007.24 annually for maintenance and data connections support.