Just two years ago, it cost Floyd County $5.21 per day to house an inmate at the Floyd County prison.

But thanks to two new state contracts approved in 2012, that cost is now at $4.27 and should decrease even more, Warden Jeff Chandler outlined in his annual report.

The Floyd County Commission renewed its contract with the Georgia Department of Corrections in June of last year and agreed to place 398

inmates, up from 348, at the prison located on Black’s Bluff Road.

In August, the contract was increased to add 26 inmates, giving the prison a total of 424.

In 2011 the cost to run the prison was $3.4 million and the reimbursements were $2.7 million, leaving the county with a bill of $647,671.64. That’s a cost of $5.16 per day to house the 344 prisoners there.

At the end of 2012, expenses were $3.5 million and the reimbursements were $2.9 million, leaving the cost to the county at $579,550 or $4.27 per day for the 372 prisoners housed there.

The state pays $20 per day to the county to house the prisoners.

When the new prison was built in 2001, 384 beds were contracted for the state and the other 100 remaining beds were to be used for county inmates, according to the annual report.

When the Work Release Center was completed in 2009 and opened in February 2010, the need for county beds at the prison was eliminated.

Chandler said the full effect of the increase will not be realized until the end of 2013 when a full year of the additional reimbursements can be shown.

“We have only had the increases since July,” Chandler said.

He said he expects the cost per day will drop below $4.

Part of the reason Chandler and prison official wanted to increase the number of inmates was to have more to choose from to provide work crews for the city and county government.

In 2012, inmates worked 623,256 hours, a value of $6.23 million to Floyd County, based on paying a $10 an hour rate without benefits.

That number has increased from 2011 when inmates logged 592,072 hours providing a value of $5.9 million to the county.

The majority of the work hours were completed in the prison, but 196,923 hours were logged to Floyd County Public Works.

Inmate labor is also used at the airport, library, The Forum and with the City of Rome.

The prison has not had an escape since 2009, which Chandler attributed to inmates being compliant with the rules and regulations of the facility.