Orange County's sheriff told county commissioners Tuesday they need to come up with a long-term plan for jail overcrowding.

"With responsibility of people in the community - doing the things that they do - you're going to have to have a jail that will probably hold 250, 300 people," Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass said. "There's no way we can maintain it unless y'all give us some renovations or give us some direction in which you want us to go."

Last month, a state inspection revealed the downtown Hillsborough jail was overcrowded by 45 people. It's supposed to hold 129 inmates.

"Part of the overcrowding that day: five of the 160 males that we had in the jail were on backlog to the Department of Corrections," Pendergrass said. "Nine of the other persons in the jail were there on 30-day plus sentences to the Orange County Jail"

Pendergrass studied the jail logs from July 1, 2007 to August 18, 2008. He found that the jail averaged 162 people. There was an average of 76 federal inmates.

"We have two or three alternatives," he told commissioners. "We can stop housing federal inmates. If we did, we'd lose about $2.5 to $2.8 million a year in revenue and I don't think we want to do that."

Commissioners agreed with him.

"We have to look at long-term solutions," Commissioner Moses Carey, Jr. said. "I can't see us saying good-bye to that because the taxpayer would have to pick that up."

The county jail that sits on the corner of Court and Margaret Lane was built in 1925. Renovations and expansions have added more room. But now, it's not enough.

"For the past five years, we've told you we really need space to house females," Pendergrass said. "In the last ten years - it's just gone out of sight - the number of females that we're housing."

Commissioners asked the Pendergrass about portable structures that could go behind the jail. But the plan would have to go before architects, engineers and the historical society before they could go in. Realizing that finding more room will take a lot of groundwork, commissioners didn't make a decision Tuesday night.

"We need to work together to find out what it's going to cost," Commissioner Barry Jacobs said.

In the meantime, Sheriff Pendergrass stressed that inmates are living in humane conditions.

"The fire marshal inspected the jail on May 29th and we were in compliance," Pendergrass told commissioners.

The health department reviewed menus and the jail was in compliance, too.

The state report suggested the county reduce state inmate populations and accelerate court dockets and pre-trial release inmates. To read the report, click here.