A decision at the meeting of the Corrections Commission of Northwest Ohio this week was all about financial stability. Lucas County was seeking an increase in their bed allocation from 275, and hoping to add-on 50 more. But any additional request for bed-space at the regional jail had to be submitted by October 4th, when the CCNO board began finalizing numbers for 2018. With no additional request from Lucas County at that time, the board members decided to offer the extra space to the federal prison system. They contracted for those beds, and then Lucas County this week came up with their late request. The CCNO board voted to turn down Lucas County, sensing they would be pulling out of the regional jail consortium anyway in the years ahead, to construct their own jail. Another factor was on October 4th, the consortium would have been losing money with empty beds if they had not contracted for the federal inmates.
Lucas County has withdrawn their request for a bond issue on the ballot to raise money to construct a new jail. CCNO is still dealing with the department of the city of Toledo from the consortium, which caused a 1.3 million dollar budget deficit for 2016.