The majority of Oglethorpe County’s inmates don’t stay in the county jail.
Instead, they reside roughly 45 minutes away at the Hart County Jail, the result of a November 2025 intergovernmental agreement between Oglethorpe County Sheriff David Gabriel and Hart County Sheriff Chris Carroll.
The Oglethorpe County jail stopped housing inmates in 2022, choosing to outsource them to Wilkes, Oconee, Greene and Hart counties. As county officials work on finalizing the 2027 budget, this decision has drawn scrutiny.
At a July 21 board of commissioners work session, county administrator Jason Lewis said the contract could represent a sharp increase in the new budget. District 3 Commissioner David Clark said, if it’s more cost effective, he would rather see the county “repair whatever necessary we need to our jail (and) put our Sheriff back to putting inmates in the jail here instead of putting them out in Hart.”
However, Gabriel said he estimates outsourcing inmates saves the county $600,000 to $750,000 annually.
“A lot of our expenses are based on population,” said Jonathan James, the jail commander. “When you consider food contracts, medical contracts, everything that goes into maintaining a fully operational facility … the expenditures were pretty high for us.”
Oglethorpe County has outsourced inmates informally as space was available, but the recent contract guarantees 25 beds at the rate of $55 per bed, per day, a total of $501,875 annually.
“That covers everything in-house,” Carroll said. “The housing, the food, the medical care … it’s pretty much just normal everyday cost.”
Gabriel said the primary savings come from the reduced labor costs.
While housing inmates locally would require 16 jailers, the county currently maintains a staff of five. A jailer’s salary averages $60,000, which means hiring 11 additional staff would cost $660,000 in salary alone.
James said medical, insurance and food costs would add to the total.
Outsourcing inmates has also allowed the sheriff’s office to redirect funds toward facility maintenance, including updated door locks, a new camera system and ongoing plumbing repairs.
While all arrested individuals are still initially processed at the Oglethorpe County jail, they are typically transferred to Hart County if they haven’t posted bond within 3-4 days. According to the agreement, Oglethorpe County’s Sheriff's Office is responsible for the transportation of inmates to the Hart facility, court and medical appointments outside of the Hart County Jail.
The Hart County Jail holds an average daily population of about 170 inmates, roughly half of whom come from out of county, including Franklin, Banks and Habersham counties.
Some inmates are still sent to Wilkes and Walton counties as needed, James said, but a formal contract only exists with Hart.
“They’re not agencies that we typically house with a lot, but every once in a while, you’ll have situations where those inmates can’t be housed in Hart County for one reason or another, whether they have co-defendants or victims there, or whatever the case may be,” James said.
The contract is set to automatically renew unless either party wants to renegotiate or cancel it, but both Carroll and Gabriel said they haven’t experienced any problems with the agreement.
“I think this benefits both of us by giving him some guaranteed bed space to be able to house Oglethorpe’s inmates, and then also it helps us with some revenue, as far as paying for our facility,” Carroll said. “It kind of works both ways.”
Gabriel said this is the most cost effective decision for the county, since it averages only 30-32 inmates a day, and there are no plans to change the contract.
“It’s something that we look at every year when it comes (to) budget time,” James said. “We look at what it’s costing us to house those inmates versus what it’s going to cost to open back up. At this point, there just still hasn’t been a lot of margin for error in terms of opening up versus housing (in Hart).”