AUBURN — The Androscoggin County jail is preparing for an influx of inmates Friday.

That is the deadline imposed by Cumberland County officials demanding a $50 boarding fee for each prisoner they house from other county jails.

With a rated capacity of 160 inmates, the Androscoggin County jail held 161 prisoners on Sept. 30. Another 15 were housed at the Portland jail.

With no money in the budget to pay boarding fees, the Androscoggin County prisoners in Portland will be returned to Auburn on Friday. Local jail officials are still working on the details on where to house those inmates at the overcrowded facility.

“We had to do an inventory of bed costs, everything that’s available,” Sheriff Eric Samson said. “We realized that at 161 (inmates) plus 15, we did not have enough places for people to sleep. Never mind square footage. We didn’t have enough beds.”

Besides obtaining some portable beds, officials are studying ways to squeeze more beds into the pods and are even converting some classroom and library space to house inmates.

“We’ve taken areas that were built for 20 and we’re making it 30 people in there. That’s never a healthy option,” Samson said.

Androscoggin County is not the only facility with overcrowding issues. The jails in Penobscot and Kennebec counties are facing a similar crisis. According to a recently published report, Penobscot County has an average inmate count of 177 in a facility rated for 157.

“Look at the facilities — us, Kennebec and Penobscot,” said Capt. Jeffrey Chute, the jail administrator for Androscoggin County. “They were all built in the same time period. All are inner-city jails with no room for expansion and we’re the three jails with a major population crunch.”

“Penobscot is in a similar situation to us with higher numbers,” Samson said. “They’ve made many of the adjustments that we’re now making.”

Samson understands why Cumberland County and the few other receiving jail facilities — Two Bridges in Wiscasset and the Somerset County jail in Madison — are seeking funds to help cover their costs for boarding prisoners. He says the $50 rate Cumberland is asking for is extremely reasonable.

“But we don’t have the ability to pay,” Samson said.

With an average of 20 prisoners a day housed at Cumberland, Androscoggin’s cost would be $1,000 per day.

Officials concede that they likely will see tensions increase due to squeezing more inmates into the jail.

“Whenever you add more offenders into the same space — we’re not gaining square footage — what happens is you’re forced to house people where they probably shouldn’t be,” Chute said. “That creates challenges, and the staff has to deal with that.”

Androscoggin County’s numbers would be even higher if not for alternative sentencing, work incentives and pretrial services.

Eligible prisoners who have been sentenced can join a 2-for-1 program, where they get a day reduced from their sentence for every two days of work. That can include kitchen, laundry and cleaning crews. A couple of inmates have even helped provide labor during the construction of the new district attorney’s office in Lewiston. Others have painted schools and other public buildings in the county.

All of that helps reduce the head counts, but Samson’s biggest challenge is the large number of pretrial inmates. Less than 30 percent of the inmates are actually serving a sentence. The remainder are awaiting trial.

While it is too early to tell, Samson and Chute are hopeful that the new Unified Court Docket will help improve those numbers and increase the percentage of sentenced inmates at the jail.

It may be time to consider a new jail, but Samson said that solution would be many years down the road.

“This probably would be an opportunity to start planning for a new facility, but you don’t want to look at it as your first alternative,” Samson said. “You need to look at what other options are there in the community.

“But you don’t want to violate your own policies and standards in regards to public safety and staffing that has worked over the years.”

ssherlock@sunjournal.com