BAZETTA — The Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office has been approved to use $92,000 of the county’s Opioid Settlement Funds to upgrade the jail’s Soter body scanner that screens prisoners for illegal contraband as they enter the jail.

The current scanner, located in the receiving area of the jail, has not been upgraded since 2017.

On average, the jail staff conduct approximately 3,000 body scans per year.

Commissioner Rick Hernandez during Wednesday’s meeting at the Trumbull County Fair said the current scanner is reaching its end.

“Without this upgrade, it will be out of commission,” Hernandez said. “It will cost a lot of money to replace. It will update the full-body scanner. It will greatly enhance the jail’s ability to detect contraband on or inside a person. It will serve as a deterrent to those attempting to smuggle substances into the facility.”

Commissioner Denny Malloy added that sheriff’s deputies and corrections officers have been finding contraband on inmates going into the facility.

“There are many cavities on the human body where things can be hidden,” he said. “Some of them you have to use high technology to find, because the criminals are getting better and better at getting stuff in there.”

Malloy said it has been about a year since the issue of contraband being smuggled into the jail was brought to the commissioners.

“They know it is coming in cavities,” he said. “They have caught people with things in places where people really don’t want to put on gloves to check. They know they are trying it and the scanner helps to catch those people.”

Hernandez emphasized that the funds being used for the upgrade are not from the county’s tight general fund, but from an opioid settlement with several pharmaceutical companies.

In other business, commissioners:

• Approved providing compensatory time to county employees who go outside their typical work areas to serve the public by working the commissioners’ booth during the fair, as well as any commissioners’ booth during the county’s festival season.

• Approved spending $499,950 for the purchase of a combination sewer cleaner mounter on a freightliner 114SD single axle cab and chassis from A&H Equipment. It is being requested by Trumbull County Engineer David DeChristofaro. No general funds are being used to make the purchase.

• Approved paying $3,125 to Sexton & Associates for the architectural design for the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office evidence room construction.

• Learned the Trumbull County Fair Board on Wednesday allowed students from Fairhaven School to attend the fair at no cost and paid for their refreshments.