There’s room for more inmates at the Park County Detention Center.

Should the jail accept some inmates from Montana to help alleviate a problem in Carbon County, Mont., while bringing in some revenue to the Park County Sheriff’s Office?

It seems worthy of a long look, and we applaud Sheriff Scott Steward for being willing to consider it. It could mean an additional $100,000 or more in revenue for his office.

Carbon County officials broached the idea with Park County officials earlier this year, Steward said. The Montana county lacks a jail, and has been housing inmates at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility in Billings.

The Billings jail has been charging $85 per prisoner for its out-of-county inmates. This summer, it raised the rate to $100 per prisoner, and Carbon County decided to explore its options.

Steward said he is offering a rate of around $65 per inmate. That would not include transportation costs, and he said he has no desire to haul the prisoners to or from his jail.

Nor does he want to hire any more staffers for his detention center. The jail has 26 staffers, not counting cooks, Steward said, and they handle, on average, 38 to 45 inmates per day. At times there are nearly twice as many inmates, he said, but that is rare.

With three shifts to cover, and with days off, vacations and other scheduling demands, there are anywhere from four to eight detention center employees on staff at all times. Steward said there would not be a large increase in his costs, with Carbon County sending down fewer than 10 inmates. A minor increase in the food budget — it costs about $6 to $8 a day to feed a prisoner — would be a minor concern, he said.

The sheriff said he and others in the county plan to “put the pencil to it,” but they hope to have an offer in place, and possibly an answer, by the end of the year.

Steward said he would not accept juveniles or people with mental illness issues. Of course, such a problem could and likely would crop up from time to time, and preparing for that is one of the issues that needs to be resolved.

The sheriff said there is also a “confusing state statute” that restricts out-of-state prisoners in Wyoming, but it refers to private facilities, so that will probably not be a problem. The county is examining the legal details to ensure this can happen without violating any laws or putting itself in potential liability problems.

“There’s a lot of legal issues to answer,” Steward said Friday. “But I think it’s very possible.”

The jail has room for 106 inmates. Currently, it accepts people charged by the sheriff’s office, the Powell and Cody police departments as well as people charged by the Wyoming Highway Patrol, the Division of Criminal Investigation, the Game and Fish Department and, on occasion, other counties.

Under state law, the jail must accept inmates from the Highway Patrol, DCI and Game and Fish and cannot seek reimbursement for them. But it can take in inmates from other jurisdictions and charge an appropriate fee.

This is a local example of a national trend, as a reduction in crime, the use of alternative penalties and shorter sentences and other factors have left cells empty across the country. In October, The Wall Street Journal reported on the “prisoner shortage” in the country.

That’s a very good thing, but it also has increased the competition for those who are still being held behind bars. That’s why Park County may have an attractive offer to make to Carbon County and one that could benefit both entities.

Powell started sending its household waste to Billings this summer because it offered a better rate. There is a history of cooperation between communities near the state line and this could be the latest chapter of that.

We feel housing those Montana inmates would be a good use of the Park County jail and its trained staff. Park County should move on this and sign a deal with its neighbors to the north.