The opening of a third pod at the Miami County Incarceration Facility (IF) to house female prisoners will come later rather than sooner because of difficulties in hiring enough correction officers.

The county commission in November gave the sheriff’s office the go ahead to open a third, 60-person pod at the Incarceration Facility (IF) between Troy and Piqua instead of housing up to 15 excess female prisoners a day at the Shelby County Jail.

The commission was told then that another pod could be opened in a day or two but the department first needed to hire and train four more correction officers.

Chief Deputy Dave Duchak said turnover in the correction officer positions will delay opening a third pod. He didn’t give a specific timeframe for opening.

“We are still in the process of hiring. We have lost COs through attrition,” he said.

Those leaving are hired by other police agencies for jobs such as police officers or are taking higher paying jobs, Duchak said.

“We will not have the personnel in place by this spring to open the third pod,” he said. “I am hopeful that we will have personnel in place sometime in the next several months to open the pod.”

The correction officers staff both the Incarceration Facility located between Troy and Piqua, which now holds up to 120 men, and the downtown Troy jail that houses females and violent, felony male offenders. The state wants the downtown jail population to total 48 combined.

As of late last week, 15 females were being housed in Shelby County along with 23 females in the downtown jail. The IF, now housing only men, had 74 male prisoners and another 48 men were in the downtown jail.

The IF cannot be used to house violent offenders.

Because of the growing number of female offenders in the past couple of years, the county in August 2014 began housing up to 15 females at day at the Shelby County Jail for $55 each.

The most recent numbers reviewed by the commission in the fall showed an approximate cost of opening a third pod with an average 45 prisoners at $285,000. The estimated cost to continue outsourcing up to 15 females a day was $301,000 for a year without the cost to transport prisoners.