The Butler County Prison generated nearly 50 percent more revenue than budgeted in 2013.

According to county controller records, the prison brought in $2.1 million, which was more than $600,000 higher than the budgeted $1.4 million.

Most of the 2013 revenue, or $2 million, was from housing out-of-county inmates.

As of Monday, there were 359 prisoners. Included in that number were 32 state inmates, 47 federal prisoners and 15 inmates from Fayette County.

The county charges daily rates of $76 for federal inmates, $70 for state prisoners and $60 for those sent from other counties.

County Commissioner Dale Pinkerton, prison board chairman, said the revenue helps the bottom line.

“It really reduces our expenses,” Pinkerton said.

County Controller Ben Holland, a fellow prison board member, said the revenue needs to be weighed against medical expenses tied to housing out-of-county prisoners.

The county last month amended its contract by roughly $125,000 with Wexford Health Sources to increase medical staffing at the prison.

Shaffer previously said the medical staff is swamped with many of the out-of-county inmates seeking treatment.

The county would have paid a total of $621,818 this year without the increase. Next year, the increase would cover 12 months instead of nine so the additional cost would be $165,000.

Commissioner Jim Eckstein, who also is on the prison board, said the cost to house the out-of-county inmates should be established, then subtracted from the revenue side.

“We have a utopia, let’s not figure out what the costs are,” he said, criticizing the lack of such information.

Holland said his office could derive an average cost for reference purposes.

The county already has the total medical costs for the prison, which was $708,000 in 2013. The line item was budgeted to be higher at $866,810.

Of the total 2013 revenue of $2.1 million, more than $95,000 is from fees assessed to inmates, such as booking fees.

The prison’s total expenses for 2013 were more than $10 million.