Over the past couple of weeks, the new Cole County Jail has been running at about 80 percent of capacity, with an average daily population of 131-141 inmates.
But Presiding Commissioner Marc Ellinger has some concerns about these figures. Ellinger noted the county only gets around $20 a day to house prisoners on state charges and, with the actual cost of housing each inmate running around $78 a day, the county loses more money the longer an inmate stays in the county jail.