County Mayor Jim Coppinger said a report by consultants is due Sept. 30 on the feasibility of closing the current downtown jail and replacing it with a smaller holding facility, while moving many more inmates to the workhouse at Silverdale.
He said he plans to outline findings in the report to members of the County Commission at a work session.
The PFM consulting firm was hired to look into the ins and outs of privatizing the jail. The workhouse has long been operated by the private Corrections Corporation of America.
Hamilton County Grand Juries have for many years cited problems at the jail on Walnut Street and urged that it be replaced. Conditions are unsafe there for both guards and prisoners, the reports say.
County Mayor Coppinger said before any plan could move forward it would need to have the concurrence of Sheriff Jim Hammond, who is over the jail. He said he had a good meeting with the sheriff on that topic on Wednesday morning.
The county mayor said the private firm "has run the workhouse for over three decades and it has worked out pretty well. It has saved taxpayers millions of dollars."
He noted that the federal prison system had stopped using CCA recently, but he said the federal and county prisoner systems have a number of differences.
He said the federal move involved seven facilities that were holding areas for illegal immigrants.