MARQUETTE — During last week’s Marquette County Board of Commissioners meeting Marquette County administrator Scott Erbisch announced that he will retire at the end of February during last week’s Marquette County Board of Commissioners meeting.

Board members said during their meeting that they hope to have a replacement lined up by March and that the job will be open for applications this week with a Feb. 14 deadline.

“We want a high-caliber individual,” said Board Chariman Joe Derocha. “We’re going to miss Scott. He’s been exemplary, a great administrator over the course of time here. He’ll be greatly missed.”

The board agreed to hire a firm called the Michigan Leadership Institute to help find a new administrator. The board also set a tentative salary range of $100,000 to $140,000, wanting to find the best individual possible. The job posting can be found on the internet, job search apps and will be posted physically.

During the meeting, the board also heard from Marquette County Undersheriff Lowell Larson regarding overcrowding in the Marquette County Jail.

According to Larson, the jail is averaging 87 inmates while only being an 80-bed facility, which has them exploring housing the inmates in other county’s jails.

“We certainly have a fiduciary duty to the public in regard to public safety and keeping the public safe,” Derocha said. “And when we have bad operators continually being able to get out of jail with get-out-of -jail-free cards, we certainly don’t want to allow that to happen.

“That’s one of the reasons why we have this on our agenda tonight, the authorization to relocate jail inmates and use adjoining counties to house those inmates. Because we are not going to be cutting loose people that need to be behind bars and have public safety threatened in any way, shape or form. So I think that is a high priority.”

The agenda item was brought forth in a memo from Erbisch, with staff recommendation to approve authorizing the sheriff with the ability to relocate a maximum of 15 inmates. The worst-case-scenario cost was estimated to be $45 per day for each inmate lodged at another jail, plus the cost of transportation.

“Chairman Derocha is asking the county board of commissioners to support allowing the sheriff to transfer inmates to other Upper Peninsula jails when needed,” Erbisch said in a memo. “The jail regularly continues to reach its maximum capacity of 80 inmates. Because of this, it is recommended that the county board support and approve authorizing the Marquette County sheriff the ability to relocate up to 15 total inmates to other Upper Peninsula jails when jail capacity warrants the relocation and the inmates qualify for relocation.

“At the time of the memo, the sheriff has already relocated two Marquette County inmates in Alger County and three inmates in the Iron County Jail.”

The board approved the recommendation and authorized relocation of inmates to other jails in the future.