Madison Co. commissioners discuss jail project, audit report

JACKSON, Tenn. — Madison County commissioners met for their monthly meeting Monday with several questions about what’s next for the jail project.

“Construction documents are in the construction manager’s hands,” Sheriff John Mehr said. “They’re going to evaluate. They’ll make some changes.”

Sheriff Mehr says the construction company will also look for ways to save money on the project. But he doesn’t know many details about the expansion, including how many beds it will have.

“We’re holding about 500 inmates right now when you add CJC, the penal farm and the annex, so it’s got to be over that,” Sheriff Mehr said.

Sheriff Mehr says he expects to have the do-not-exceed price on the construction by July 15.

The commissioners also discussed the 2016-2017 audit report.

“This time we had several findings that were very disturbing,” Commissioner Larry Lowrance said.

There were seven findings that the audit reported on, but only one of them cost the county money.

“There was one case where we did not have segregation of duties, which enabled an employee or a group of employees to misuse some funds,” Lowrance said.

The state is investigating that employee or employees and should be done within the next month.

Commissioner Lowrance says they have put several things in place to make sure such a situation doesn’t happen again.