VIDALIA — The Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office is now charging the Ferriday and Vidalia police departments an extra $13.39 a day when the agencies’ pre-trial prisoners stay at the Louisiana 15 prison.

Sheriff Kenneth Hedrick said the price of food and labor has increased to the point where it’s not feasible to charge $5 a day, the previous charge. Hedrick said the recent oil crisis has also contributed in loss of tax revenue, which also plays into the increase to $18.39 per day.

“You feed them three meals a day at $5, now tell me how I come out ahead?” Hedrick said. “I can’t. We just had to go up.”

Hedrick said this is only for overflow from the parish courthouse jail, so prisoners held for pre-trial at the courthouse jail will still be maintained at the $5 per day rate.

The rate at the courthouse jail is set by the Concordia Parish Police Jury, while the sheriff’s office can control the rate at the prison, Hedrick said. The courthouse jail has 48 beds available.

“As long as we keep it down below 48 here at the courthouse, it won’t cost nobody nothing extra,” Hedrick said. “It’s first come, first serve at the jail. We’ve been trying to make room, but sometimes we have overflows.”

Hedrick could not provide numbers for how often overflow occurs for arrestees with the Ferriday and Vidalia police departments.

Vidalia Police Chief Joey Merrill said he has met with the sheriff about the pre-trial prisoner overflow issue.

“We are going to work together on keeping everyone we need to at the sheriff’s department instead of sending them out to the prison,” he said. “This is not going to have any effect on us at all.”

Merrill said if required, Vidalia does have cells at the station available for its use.

Ferriday Police Department Assistant Chief Bruce Wiley declined to comment, citing concerns about a policy that limits bed space at the jail for Ferriday, Clayton and Vidalia.

Concordia Parish Police Jury Secretary/Treasurer Kevin Friloux said he was not aware of a policy that refuted what Sheriff Hedrick said about the jail being first come first serve.

Friloux said he would pass the sheriff’s plans along to the jury’s finance committee at today’s 6 p.m. regularly scheduled meeting at the courthouse.

The Concordia Parish Police Jury pays $5 per day for each sheriff’s office pre-trial prisoner.

However, Friloux said Louisiana law only requires the parish to pay $3.50 per pre-trial prisoner, and at some point the jury elected to go up to $5 per day.

Friloux said he didn’t believe the sheriff could require the police jury to pay more. He said everyone has been impacted by the oil crisis and the sheriff might have to find another way to recoup the tax losses.

Hedrick did not return a phone message left Thursday to comment on the police jury increase.

The jail and prison also contains people awaiting pre-trial for 10 different parishes. Hedrick said he charges $24.39 per day for out-of-parish entities.