AUBURN — If the state continues to squeeze county jail budgets, keeping the Androscoggin County Jail open would mean cutting its inmate population, slashing jail services to local police and eliminating at least five corrections officers, Sheriff Guy Desjardins said.

On Thursday morning, Desjardins began meetings with the county’s police chiefs to discuss the changes, which would close the jail at night to new inmates accused of nonviolent crimes. It would also force local police to transport inmates to their first appearances before judges.

The sheriff also met with union personnel from his own department to discuss possible layoffs.

“The counties were told that they needed to submit flat-funded budgets and that there is no more money,” Desjardins said. “It’s going to be tough.”

He is even contemplating ending the practice of taking in Oxford County’s inmates, something that goes back to the start of the state system in 2009.

Nothing is certain, though.

On July 16, Mark Westrum, chairman of the state Board of Corrections, repeated the plea to county jails to submit zero-increase budgets for the current fiscal year, which began on July 1. Only one county, Piscataquis, had done so.

“We have no more money,” Westrum insisted.

If the county jail gets an added $357,000 for this year — which Desjardins says it needs to maintain its work for the coming year — the changes will be unnecessary, the sheriff said.

And if the cuts do go through, he won’t lay off any corrections officers until the state lowers the population in the jail. State rules currently set the capacity in the jail at 160 inmates. The sheriff would lower it to 120.

“If the positions go, the inmates will have to go with them,” he said. If he is forced to keep the population high and cut money, he’ll run the budget into the red, he said.

The state Board of Corrections is due to listen to county-by-county presentations on Aug. 19.

Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant said Thursday he sympathizes with Desjardins. He, too, is facing a shortfall if the state pushes for flat funding. In 2009, his jail was reclassified as a 72-hour holding facility. Most inmates with longer stays were directed to Androscoggin County.

“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do,” Gallant said. “Where am I going to go?”

He blamed the state.

“They never funded the jails,” he said. “You can’t flat-fund us for three years in a row and expect us to survive.”

dhartill@sunjournal.com