Year one savings amounted to $110 thousand

Oconee County’s arrangement with a Tennessee health care provider for inmates saved the county more than $110 thousand dollars in the first year.  And that figure mirrored what Sheriff Mike Crenshaw told the county council in 2015 when he requested and received approval to outsource the job of medical care to Southern Health Partners of Chattanooga.  Crenshaw disclosed the figure to 101.7/WGOG NEWS yesterday after verifying the figures with Capt. Steve Pruitt, officer-in-charge of the detention center.  The first year of the outsourcing applied to 2015-16.  The last six months of that year reflected medical care costs for inmates housed in the new $16.2 million jail.