YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County’s contracts to house federal inmates from the United States Marshals Service, Federal Bureau of Prisons and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are now valid in the eyes of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.

At Tuesday’s regular meeting at the Lake Milton Fire Depart-ment, Mahoning County commissioners ratified changes to contracts with those agencies to make the county the primary contracting agency.

Sheriff Jerry Greene said the Mahoning County jail has been housing ICE inmates since March and has been taking U.S. Marshals and BOP inmates for a few years now. But the county needed to change the contract terms because of a ruling issued by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost in late August.

“The reason this all started was that a few weeks back, the Butler County sheriff asked their county prosecutor for an opinion as to whether he was even allowed to house ICE inmates,” Greene said. The question made its way to Yost’s office, and Yost issued a ruling stating that county jails can house federal inmates but the county — not the sheriff’s office — must be the contracting agency.

“With that decision, we just went to the commissioners to ensure we still had their support and they all supported it, and then we went to the prosecutor’s office to have them write up the resolutions,” Greene said.

Greene said it amounts to little more than a technicality.

“The irony of this whole thing is that I don’t do anything without them,” he said. “A few years ago, when we started housing federal inmates, I asked the prosecutor to look over it and they said it’s OK. But this just states that I can’t do it by myself. I have to do it on behalf of the commissioners.”

Greene said in April that Mahoning County has housed ICE inmates before, in 2009. The jail did not house any during President Donald Trump’s first administration, from 2017 to 2021, but when Trump was reelected in November, Greene reached out, assuming ICE detainees would be a reality, per Trump’s campaign promises.

He said then that Mahoning County already makes about $5 million to $6 million per year housing U.S. Marshals and BOP inmates.

“That money goes into the criminal justice fund to support Mahoning County,” he said.

Greene said that helps offset the gap in the county’s criminal justice budget, which is largely supported by the criminal justice sales tax that brings in $33 million to $34 million annually.

The federal contracts pay the county $125 per inmate per day.

In April, Greene said he expected the ICE contract to bring in about $4 million per year.

He said the county jail can comfortably house about 570 inmates, and Mahoning County can comfortably take in about 100 and possibly as many as 150.

Thursday’s total inmate count was 496. Greene said 142 are U.S. Marshals inmates, 108 are ICE inmates, and two are from the BOP. At $125 per inmate, that adds up to $31,500. If the county held steady at that number for the next year, it would generate $11,497,500.

The Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, a private prison operated by Core Civic on Hubbard Road in Youngstown, also is housing ICE and U.S. Marshals detainees.