The Lincoln County Work Center has been approved for another year to house state prisoners.

County Administrator David Fields told the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors Monday that he’d received a 2016 order from the U.S. District Court signed by Judge David A. Sanders giving approval for another year. The order will be up for renewal again May 1.

The original court order was issued in the early ‘70s that approved county jails to hold state inmates, Sheriff Steve Rushing said.

According to the order, the work center, which is located in the renovated and repurposed old Lincoln County jail, can house up to 12 joint state and county work program inmates, three sheriff’s trusties and eight jail support inmates.

State inmates can work on any county, state or city property, Rushing said.

According to the order, state inmates in the work center must be provided:

• At minimum, four hours of outside “yard time” opportunities in an outdoors yard area during the inmates’ off hours and during mornings and afternoons on weekends, holiday and other non-working days.

• Quality, stackable plastic armchairs inside the work center and outside in the yard area “so that off-work inmates do not have to sit exclusively on their bunks.”

• A sufficient number of desks or table for eating, writing and table games to seat all working inmates during evenings or bad weather.

• A sufficient supply of clothes, underclothes, sleeping clothes, socks, shoes, towels and personal hygiene supplies as needed.

State inmates in the work center are allowed to use personal radios and TVs with headphones near or on their bunks, with power outlets near the bunks.

All jail officers must be trained and certified.

State inmates cannot be worked more than eight hours a day.

“We’re approved to house that many, it’s whether the state sends us that many,” Fields said.

Pauper’s funeral

Supervisors had questions about a request by Tyler Funeral Home for $450 toward the burial cost of George M. Washington, who died July 16. Fields said the funeral home requested assistance for a pauper’s funeral for Washington. “We don’t do these very often,” he said.

Supervisors asked Fields, who was leading the meeting in Lincoln County Chancery Clerk Tillmon Bishop’s absence, whether Washington lived in the county or in the city.

“Tyler probably went to the city to get a grave,” Fields said.

He said supervisors are not asked very often to assist with funeral expenses for deceased residents. “We’ll have maybe one of these a year,” he said.

In other business, supervisors approved removal of several inventory items, including a cell phone, a printer and a sheriff’s deputy car which was totaled during a hail storm several months ago.

In other business, the board approved Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing’s request to hire two full-time and one part-time dispatchers to replace other dispatchers who took jobs elsewhere.

Supervisors set the date for their docket meeting for Monday at 9 a.m.