MONTICELLO – Sullivan County is under state order to build a new jail, and that will not change regardless of whether area counties follow through with a regionalization study, and whether that study produces concrete results.

What could happen, according to County Manager David Fanslau, is that exactly what the county builds could change.

“The study we talked about may come out and show that if this is something that could work, we could potentially build a jail that would be less than 303 cells and therefore, less expensive to build.”

The 303 cell number is the last best estimate of what Sullivan County must build to fully address its own needs, as a county with a relatively small population nine months of the year, but doubles in size during the summer.  Also out of the equation, for now, are casinos.

During Thursday’s Public Safety Committee meeting, Chairwoman Leni Binder suggested a regional approach could allow a county, such as Sullivan, to house a normal inmate population, but send specialized inmates, such as teenage girls, elsewhere.