The contract for meals for Washington County Jail inmates has been approved. At their meeting Tuesday the Washington County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the contract. The cost per meal with at least 25 inmates in the jail will be going from $4.13 to $4.20 next year and then $4.28 the following year.

Sheriff Jared Schneider said the cost is prorated for the number of inmates in the jail, so the rates will fall when there are 25 or more inmates, “One of the first things that I negotiated out of this contract, they keep wanting to come up with a lower tier for 1-20 meals, and so we negotiated that back out of the contract. The price is where we felt comfortable with them. Currently we don’t have to worry about the 20-24 inmates and meal costs but if we lost our contract inmates we’d be right back down into that neighborhood. So having the contract inmates right now is saving us quite a bit of money on our meals for our own inmates, too.”

The contractor will also provide special meals for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. The contract runs through June 30, 2020. The approved rates will be paid for any meals after March 21, 2019.