After locking up the jail for non-compliance of state regulations last Wednesday afternoon, the fiscal court had a special called meeting to deal with confusing issues brought up due to the closure of the facility.

The court adopted a transportation plan at the meeting designating Jailer Darrell McQueary as the county transportation officer and hired four of his former deputy jailers as transportation officers with one additional on a part-time basis.

The officers hired were Shawn Cook, Dennis Graham, Brenda Wilson, Geraldine Stephens with Vicky White being part-time.

These transportation officers will use their personal cell phones for use while the county is giving them $20 per month reimbursement for calls.

The "full-time" transportation officers will be paid $5.50 per hour  for a 40-hour work week but when they receive a call to transport their on-call salary, whatever it may be, will kick in until their transport is complete.

A small holding area will remain open at the jail where law enforcement must stay with their arrested persons until a transportation officer arrives to take them to the alternate location, Garner said.

That alternate location was chosen to be the Casey County Detention Center, who will charge the county $29 per inmate each day.

All inmates from the jail in Russell County and the inmates kept in the Adair County Jail have been moved to the Liberty facility.

Garner said officials with the Casey County facility said they would bring inmates to court in Russell County if there were three or more that had court dates on the same day. He said those officials would remain with the inmates until their time in court was over when they would transfer them back to the detention center in Liberty without charging the county any extra. If there were less than three, Russell County would be responsible for going and getting the inmates from Liberty and transporting them back.

Garner said Casey officials also said if there were cases were three or more inmates were being initially transported to the facility for the first time, they would meet Russell County transportation officers in Dunnville and make the exchange there.

And, Garner said, under an emergency situation city police and the sheriff's office could also transport prisoners.

In other happenings at the meeting:

o Representatives with Premier Integrity Solutions in Russell Springs spoke to the court about the possibility of using GPS-monitored ankle bracelets for non-violent offenders which would allow those persons to be home incarcerated for $15 per day.

"I think that will be a big savings to the county," Garner said. Premier said they would waive the usual $50 installation fee for Russell County given the emergency situation involving the inmate situation.

The court will have to decide what non-violent offenses could use the bracelets as an option, according to Jeff Loy, assistant county attorney. Using this option there will be no medical expenses or transfer fees.

o Keys were handed out to local law enforcement officials and the transportation officers for them to be able to get into the telephone room at the jail, where the inmates will temporarily be taken to by law enforcement before being transported to Liberty.

o In another special called fiscal court meeting on Friday morning, county leaders chose to use a car given by the sheriff's department as another transportation vehicle for inmates. The car, which has a bad transmission, will soon have that part replaced using spare parts from a wrecked vehicle. This would give the transportation officers two vehicles to use for taking inmates to Dunnville or Liberty.

o Also at the Friday meeting, Greg Popplewell, first district magistrate, brought some questions before the court concerning the county's flex funding for roads. The court voted to accept a flex funding resolution for $167,581 allowing them to receive funding from the state for the paving of submitted roads. Popplewell was the lone opposition.

Popplewell said he had talked with officials from KACO and the Department of Local Government that told him the way roads were chosen was due to county prioritizing. He said that because of this he hasn't been able to secure funding for the pavement of roads in his district.

Garner and Magistrate Ronald Johnson said that was the first they had heard of roads being paved due to a prioritized list. At the end of the meeting Garner even said that he didn't think that's how state road money was allocated.

Popplewell said the county needed to adopt a road plan that would allow all roads that needed it a fair shot at getting paved.