Kitchen to prepare meals for inmates

All new or refurbished kitchen equipment at the old jail will be put to use by as early as July to prepare inmate meals, according to sheriff Kenny Dickerson.

A new six-burner stove and side grill, a floor deep fryer, a five-compartment steam table, a floor mixer, a three-compartment sink and dishwasher, a four-door stainless steel freezer, and a stainless steel ice machine are some of the components that will be installed and ready for use.

Jennifer Key will serve as kitchen, food and nutrition manager. She is ServeSafe certified.

Terry Moore, a nutritionist with 30 years experience, will supervise the kitchen.

With a new jail capacity of 68, the sheriff said food will be prepared in the new kitchen in the old jail, placed in insulated trays, and transported in climate controlled carts to the new jail.

Dickerson said state/county inmates who work on road crews and eligible as nonviolent offenders will continue to be housed in the old jail.

The extra space in the old jail will also be used for overflow from the new jail as needed.

The sheriff said he has extra space and some new deputies who will be able to serve warrants on file that have not been acted on to help shorten the court docket.

“The new space will allow us to serve indictments and warrants issued by the court,” he said. “I have three additional deputies hired and one on military leave who will be back the first of the year.

“That number will be a great help in carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the county. We hope to get more deputies as years go by because of the growth in the county.”

County building and ground crews have worked to renovate the kitchen walls, clean the vent hood, and get equipment ready to install as soon as the floor is resurfaced by a contract crew in order to meet new health standards.

Dickerson said the responsibility to provide food for inmates lies with the board of supervisors.

“It is not incumbent on the sheriff to do that,” he said. “The board of supervisors wanted to save money.”

Under state law no more than $15 a day can be spent to provide three meals a day to inmates, Dickerson said.

The inmates were moved to the old jail in 1999, the sheriff said.

“This was the kitchen at the jail at that time and was never adequate due to the design, to feed inmates,” Dickerson said.

So for decades the meals for inmates were provided by the prison at a cost of about $4.50 per inmate per day until the state took over the private prison several years ago.

“When the state took over, the prison would not continue to furnish food,” Dickerson said. “That’s when we had to go to another source. If we had continued to get meals at $4.50 per day, there would be no need for this.”

Dickerson said a few inmate trusties will be used to help in the operation of the kitchen.