DAPHNE, Ala.— The Daphne City Council Monday night voted unanimously to ratify new jail contracts with Spanish Fort and Silverhill to house prisoners for their municipalities, but Councilman John Lake questioned whether the city was getting enough money out of the deal.

The approved contracts charge each municipality $50 per prisoner per day they are housed in the Daphne jail. The Daphne jail also houses occasional prisoners for other agencies, but those contracts were not up for renewal.

“These are standard contracts that we have for housing prisoners from those departments and arrests from those departments, which do not have a city jail,” Councilman August Palumbo said.

The council also voted to approve an exception to the hiring freeze to fill a vacant position for a corrections officer. The estimated annual cost for filling the position is $38,404 to $40,921. 

“We just agreed to do two communities — one to the north of us and one to the south of us — to take their prisoners for $50 a day. Has anybody looked at the cost and whether we are going to benefit; because we have to hire another highly skilled, expensive employee that we have to pay so much for expenses on medical benefits and all these other benefits that this individual gets because we are taking two other communities prisoners. Wouldn’t it be better to mark off part of our facility and not take in somebody else’s prisoners?” Lake said.