Inmate welfare history
The county commissioner's inmate welfare fund committee met on Monday, Oct. 11. The committee is meant to resolve one of the hot-topics that has occupied large chunks of the commissioners' time over the past few years: how to spend profits from the money inmates spend on phone calls and in the jail's commissary.
Sheriff BJ Barnes has run into trouble with the commissioners when he has asked to use the money to pay for repairs to the county's two jails. The most recent tussle, for example, was over repairs to the Greensboro jail's elevators.
Some commissioners argue that the money should only be spent on things that more directly benefit the inmates. Barnes argues that he has no other source of money to pay for emergency repairs.
So how did the inmate welfare fund get established in the first place? We've uploaded a series of memos (into separate files so they'd be easier to access over dial-up connections) that may explain. Read them: