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NATCHEZ — More than a year ago, when District 1 Supervisor Wes Middleton engineered a plan to house pre-trial inmates from the dilapidated Adams County Jail in the Concordia Parish Correctional Facility, his plan did not include continuing to operate a jail in Natchez.

However, for a variety of reasons, that is what has happened.

Supervisors meet Tuesday in a public budget hearing to review requested budgets for the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and the county’s road department.

No decisions were made at that meeting, but the two sides butted heads of the sheriff’s office plea for much-needed pay increases for deputies and the need to continue to house some inmates in the Natchez facility.

The end result has been that rather than being a savings to the county, the county has actually paid more money to house inmates in Concordia Parish and continue to house some inmates in the condemned Adams County Jail.

“We cannot continue to contract out and run a jail,” Middleton said.

Adams County Sheriff’s Office Chief Shane Daugherty explained to supervisors that the jail must continue to be operated for some inmates.

Daugherty said Concordia Parish will not take all of the county’s inmates, and some should not be sent to the Concordia Parish facility for their safety. Concordia Parish will not accept some of the worst offenders because they are too disruptive, so the county has to continue to house them in Natchez. Other jail inmates who are being kept in Natchez have been arrested on misdemeanor charges and will have short stays before bonding out.

At the same time, maintenance issues and the need for repairs at the jail continue to add up.

The supervisors continue to find themselves in a Catch-22 situation. They do not have the money to make needed repairs in the jail, and it will be at least several years before a new jail can be constructed.

Supervisors cut almost $600,000 from the sheriff’s office budget in fiscal year 2023-2024, which equated to 12 positions.

Sheriff Travis Patten said his office could not continue to operate with additional cuts in the coming year.

“We are barely scraping by,” Patten said. “We cannot take another round of budget cuts.”