Kingston – The state Commission on Corrections has given the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office the green light to begin boarding out-of-county inmates at the new county jail in Kingston.

The facility, which is part of the county’s new Law Enforcement Center, was opened months ago and on October 13, the state agency gave it permission to begin to house 13 inmates from Suffolk County.

That worked so well that the state gave the nod for more this week. The county is charging $110 per day for the lodging.

The Ulster Jail could accommodate between 30 and 50 out-of-county inmates, said Sheriff Paul VanBlarcum.

The state dictates where Ulster may take in inmates, he said. At the present time, the Commission on Corrections has given Ulster permission to only house inmates from Suffolk County. VanBlarcum expects he will get the nod soon to accept inmates from Rockland County next. With Dutchess County’s overcrowded jail with no solution in the immediate future, VanBlarcum said he would love to be able to extend a helping hand across the Hudson River and provide assistance for his neighbors to the east.

Because Dutchess has an old and overcrowded county jail and county officials have not been able to resolve the issue to everyone’s liking for years, it has to board out inmates at an exorbitant cost to the taxpayer.