Sep 22, 2020 2 min read

The sheriff’s office crunched numbers and determined deputies’ overtime related to Washington County jail inmates’ medical transports and hospital stays resulted in just over $60,000 in overtime costs.

Twenty-five deputies handled 1,553 overtime hours last year for inmates’ medical-oriented duties. The number of hours per deputy ranged from two to 237 hours in 2019, with some of the department’s 40-some deputies volunteering for overtime.

“Nobody wants to sit in that hospital,” Capt. Anthony Interval said Thursday, calling it one of the “least desirable assignments. Most of this is volunteered. Twenty percent of the deputies take most of the overtime.”

Commission Chairman Diana Irey Vaughan, who also presides over the Washington County Prison Board, requested the statistics in advance of a state Department of Corrections team evaluation of the Washington County jail in conjunction with the search for a new warden.

One of the subjects they’ll be examining is the cost in man hours of medical transports and the time spent guarding against the escape of inmates from hospitals and similar facilities.

There were also 293 inmate appointments with doctors outside the jail.

Inmates were taken on a total of 146 trips to Washington Hospital, but trips went to 39 other facilities, including a methadone clinic, Mon Valley Hospital, Pittsburgh hospitals and those in Butler and Allegheny counties.

Pregnant female inmates with opioid addictions typically spend three to four days as in-patients during drug detoxification at Magee Women’s Hospital in Oakland, Interval said.

He used 2019 so he could compile figures for a full calendar year.

“There are fewer people in the jail due to COVID,” Interval said Thursday. “When this goes away, the numbers are going to jump up again.”

For example, there were 370 inmates housed in the Washington County jail as of July 2019. As of May 31, 2020, there were 278.

Interval presented his report at Wednesday’s meeting of the Washington County prison board, of which Sheriff Samuel Romano is a member, and Irey Vaughan commended the analysis.

In another jail-related matter, the Washington County salary board approved an extra $1,000 per month stipend for Deputy Warden for Security Donald Waugh and $750 per month for Deputy Warden for Security Christopher Cain in addition to their base salaries.

The increases, retroactive to Aug. 1 after Warden Edward Strawn retired, are for the performance of additional responsibilities until the warden’s position is filled.