To help with the transition to the new jail and justice center next year, Mower County will add three new jobs.

On Tuesday, the county board approved the creation — and eventual filling — of an assistant jail administrator, a program coordinator, and a training and compliance sergeant, who along with the current jail administrator will make up the “transition team.”

All the spots except for assistant jail administrator — which will be appointed by the sheriff — will be union posted jobs, and the county hopes to have them filled soon, likely through internal applications.

Once hired, the three will likely work part-time through the late fall and early winter preparing plans for a transition into the new jail and justice center before taking on full-time duties.

The new building is slated to open in September or October of 2010, county coordinator Craig Oscarson said.

Oscarson said counties often set up “transition teams” much earlier than Mower County is, but he thinks the roughly one-year window should be enough time to figure out how inmates will be moved and how the new facility will run.

Another part of the transition that needs to be addressed is jail staffing — the county will need roughly twice as many jailers to operate the new facility.

However, exactly how many jailers will be needed is still in question and depends on what type of capacity the new facility takes on.

Plans for the new jail and justice center call for three separate “pods,” which would require roughly 31 jailers.

If the county chooses, they can trim that number by one or two if they only open two pods initially.

Oscarson said with fewer pods and smaller staff, the county could still board out some prisoners, but only if that cost would be less than hiring the additional staff.

“It’s essentially a question of cost effectiveness,” Oscarson said.

The coordinator said if it became more cost effective to expand the new jail, the county could do so — up to 128 beds when all is said and done.

To get ready for the new, bigger jail, current jailers will be participating in job shadowing in other counties that have direct supervision facilities, which Mower County currently does not.

Job shadowing and other training will take roughly three months for current jailers and longer for new hires, Oscarson said.