Collin County commissioners are scheduled Monday, Oct. 12, to approve a backup plan for jail space: an agreement letting the county send inmates to the Wise County Jail at $100 a day each.
The interlocal agreement, requested by Sheriff Jim Skinner in a Sept. 17 memo, is on the court's consent agenda. The county budget office lists $408,800 available for it in the general fund for the fiscal year that runs Oct. 1, 2026, through Sept. 30, 2027.
When it would be used
The contract describes the arrangement as emergency housing and a safety precaution in case all available beds in Collin County's jail are filled. Wise County states in the agreement that it currently has the jail capacity to take Collin's inmates and will house, feed and care for them on the same basis as its own.
The agreement does not say how many inmates Collin expects to send, and the agenda item gives no figures on how full the Collin County jail is now.
What the daily rate covers
The $100 rate covers one inmate for one day, including routine on-site sick call and over-the-counter medicine. Collin County would separately reimburse Wise County for hospital stays, prescriptions, outside medical, dental and surgical care, ambulance trips and any guards posted at an outside medical facility.
An inmate who arrives in the evening and leaves by noon the next day is billed for one day, not two.
Collin County remains responsible for driving its inmates to and from Wise County, to their court hearings and to state prison when they are sentenced there. Wise County would bill monthly.
The primary term ends Sept. 30, 2027, and the two counties can renew it each year by mutual agreement.
