YOUNGSTOWN — The jobs of more than 100 employees at the private Northeast Ohio Correctional Center on Hubbard Road were saved through an agreement involving the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the prison, Sheriff Jerry Greene announced today.

An agreement that places the sheriff’s office into an intermediary position between the two other entities will allow the U.S. Marshal’s Service to continue to house federal detainees at the prison, Greene said.

The commissioners authorized the “intergovernmental agreement” at the meeting today in the basement of the Mahoning County Courthouse.

Greene said the sheriff’s office worked with Peter Elliott, U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio, and CoreCivic, the owner of the prison, starting a couple of months ago to put the agreement into place after President Joe Biden ordered the Marshal’s Service to end contracts with private prisons to house its detainees.

It left in doubt what would happen to 800 federal inmates who are housed at the facility while awaiting trial or sentencing for federal crimes in Northeast Ohio.

Greene said the sheriff’s office considered leasing a wing of the prison to provide a facility no longer run by CoreCivic, but that option was no longer needed when it became clear that an intergovernmental agreement of this type could be used.

“This will provide benefits to the sheriff’s office, U.S. Marshal’s Service for years and protects and sustains the jobs at the prison that would have been lost without this contract,” Greene said. The facility has about 400 employees, but not all would have been affected by the loss of the federal detainees, he noted.

An attempt this afternoon to reach a spokesperson for CoreCivics was unsuccessful.

The Mahoning County jail started to take on additional inmates from the U.S. Marshal’s Service in recent months in anticipation of the deadline Friday to remove federal detainees from NEOCC, Greene said.

Under the new agreement, the sheriff’s office will receive a 2.2 percent administrative fee that will add revenue of $550,000 to $700,000 per year to the sheriff’s office, he said.

Prior to a couple of months ago, the jail held about 80 federal detainees but that number has grown to about 100 now, he said.

An intergovernmental agreement has been used at some other private prisons as a way to keep federal prisoners at those private prisons, Greene noted.