The Troup County Commission is in no hurry to open a 180-bed addition at the County Jail despite overcrowded conditions.

“We have not made it a priority due to expenses,” County Manager Mike Dobbs said Thursday. “… I think we’ve got a mutual agreement with the sheriff not to open that until it’s absolutely necessary.”

The county expects to have about $2 million less in revenue in fiscal 2010 because of the bad economy, and county departments have been ordered to cut their budgets by 5 percent.

The addition, which is about 95 percent complete, will require six jailers at a cost of $250,000 for salary and benefits, and “it’s just another area to have to heat and cool,” Dobbs said.

Sheriff’s Maj. James Woodruff, who supervises jail operations, said contractors are putting up sheet rock, lights and the officers’ control tower, and they’re getting ready to connect the new pod with the existing jail.

All six jailers have been hired and “we’re training them now, ” Woodruff said. “I think there’s no way, hopefully, that we’ll not be in there before the end of June unless something unforeseen happens.”

The existing jail was built for 240 prisoners, but lately has been averaging 450, Woodruff said. The overflow sleeps on plastic cots or mattresses on the floor. A grand jury’s annual inspection in 2008 found “dangerously overcrowded” conditions and the need for more staff, as did the previous year’s inspection.

But Dobbs said as long as the jail can continue to operate without the addition, “that’s what we’re going to do.”

“We’ll wait and see,” he said. “If the sheriff came 60 days from now and said we need to open it up, we’ll do that. It will be their call.”

He said it’s “another example of the sheriff working with the Board of Commissioners.”

The addition is being financed with $1.8 million that was left over from a special sales tax that built the jail and sheriff’s office on Hamilton Road in 1995. Inmate labor saved an estimated $53,000.

The minimum-security, 19,500-square-foot addition, which had been scheduled for completion by Nov. 30, 2008, will have bunk beds that are stacked three high to accommodate more inmates.

Two dorms will have up to 50 female prisoners each, one will have up to 40 prisoners who need medical supervision and the other will have up to 40 trustees who work in the kitchen, and maintain the building and grounds.