LIVINGSTON-Chief Ashley Wellborn of the Livingston Police Department questioned the Sumter County Commissioners about when the change in the fees for housing their prisoners went into effect during the meeting on Monday.

Wellborn said when the police department received the bill for housing its prisoners, during the month of May in the Sumter County jail, he was unaware of the change in fees had already started. He also said he thought the change in fees, nearly tripling them from their previous amount was to start once they moved to the new jail.

“I don’t have a problem paying the fees, which have tripled now for the prisoners if they were in the new jail,” Wellborn said, “But they aren’t in the jail, same place, same service, so it should be the same price.”

Commissioner Aubrey Ellis brought up the same point just a little while earlier during the meeting asking the commissioners when the change in fees occurred. He also said, after learning that the deadline was May 1 that he thought it was effective when they moved in, but he would check the minutes to make sure.

Commissioner Ronnie Beard said they would check the minutes for Wellborn, but he was almost 100 percent sure it was effective May 1, wherever the prisoners were. He also said the Livingston Police Department was so use to the cheap fees for so long, that they should be ready to pay.

Wellborn asked the commission if they would give the money back for this month and wait until the prisoners moved into the new jail to start collecting the fees. The commission wanted to check the minutes for the official date and go from there.

After Wellborn’s questions to the commission, the Executive Director of the Alabama-Tombigbee Regional Commission John Clyde Riggs spoke to the commission about its Hazard Mitigation plan for Sumter County.

He said the commission received the $12,000 grant they applied for from ADECA to help pay for the $14,000 plan. He also said the draft plan was going to sent in by September to Montgomery for any corrections or errors on the plan.

“The final plan should be in by October,” Riggs said.

He said FEMA had a law passed that every county in the State of Alabama must have a Hazard Mitigations plan on file in Montgomery by November 2004 to be eligible for disaster relief funds, when they become available. He also said the plan consists of the county making a list of every possible natural disaster that can happen and then a way to combat that problem.