La Salle County Jail to house Cook County inmates for $70 per inmate per day

The La Salle County Jail has housed overflow inmates from McLean County. Now, some inmates from the Cook County Jail might stay in La Salle County, too.

On Thursday, the La Salle County Board approved an intergovernmental agreement with Cook County that permits inmate transfers – although not more than 50 – from Chicago to be housed at the jail in Ottawa. Cook County will pay $70 per inmate per day.

Worried about the county taking high-risk transfers from Chicago? Sheriff Adam Diss said there is no cause for concern.

“We house people for other counties all the time and have a secure facility,” Diss said. “We are in the business of holding prisoners. These people aren’t any different from what we hold every day, just from a different location, and I have a well-trained staff that I have confidence in.

“We have people in custody now from the Chicagoland area and all over the state of Illinois.”

Jason Edgcomb, superintendent of the La Salle County Jail, said the county has extra space thanks to the SAFE-T Act and emphasized that the county is not accepting high-risk inmates.

“We are not getting the worst of the worst,” he said.

Edgcomb said he expects 10 to 12 inmates from Cook County, which could realize $7,000 or more in payments from Chicago. (A similar agreement with McLean County will have yielded $500,000 by the end of the year.)

Finally, the board reappointed Robert Kaminski as La Salle County maintenance director, Brian Gift as land use director and Carrie Becker as administrator of the La Salle County Nursing Home.

In other matters, the board:

• Approved an agreement to share costs with three school districts (Dimmick, La Salle-Peru High School and Illinois Valley Community College) as they intervene in tax challenges brought by the Peru Mall and Menards.

• Conferred student awards on Ellie Nimke of Northlawn Junior High School in Streator, and Dixie Smick and Jenna Gamons, both of Marquette Academy in Ottawa.

• Approved a contract for election equipment (about $1 million) with Liberty Systems LLC and adjusted the per diem rate of pay for election judges.