NATCHEZ — Adams County Sheriff’s Office administrative and other department functions may soon escape the Adams County Jail on State Street if Sheriff Chuck Mayfield gets his way.

Mayfield asked the Adams County Board of Supervisors Monday for an update on his previous request to relocate and consolidate several sheriff’s office departments.

Mayfield said having departments scattered throughout the city, such as Metro Narcotics being located near John A. Quitman Boulevard, isn’t productive for the sheriff’s office.

“It’s hard to keep cases together,” Mayfield told the board.

Board attorney Scott Slover said the county had previously looked at several locations to house Metro Narcotics and administration personnel as well as investigators and other departments at one central location.

The sheriff said the last time the board discussed the matter they had decided the former Callon Petroleum building on the corner of Franklin and Wall streets was the best location they had seen.

Supervisor Angela Hutchins asked board members if the county was renting the building where Metro is currently located.

County administrator Joy Murray told Hutchins the county owned that building, but Mayfield said it was in need of major repairs.

Damages to the roof is causing insulation and other areas of the building to be exposed.

“That building is so bad, the secretary can only work a half day,” Mayfield said. “She has to go home each day because it gets so bad in there.”

Murray said the building was slated to receive a new roof soon to alleviate some of the maintenance issues, but also said the repairs would not accommodate the amount of space the sheriff needed for the various departments.

Supervisor David Carter asked board members what the possibility was of changing the configuration of the Juvenile Detention Center to accommodate the sheriff’s needs.

That conversation sparked budget discussions relating to figures presented by Adams County Youth Court Judge John Hudson last week.

During the initial budget discussions last week, the board asked Hudson why Pike County was able to budget only $150,000 for juvenile detention, while Adams County spends nearly $589,000.

Hudson later provided the board information saying that the original Pike County number only accounted for a portion of the county’s expenditure for juvenile detention.

Board President Darryl Grennell said Monday he misunderstood the original figures presented by Murray during the budget talks.

But Grennell said the numbers resulted in conversations with the board about the possibility of shutting down the center if it was more cost effective to send juveniles to another county’s facility.

Even though that option was ruled out quickly, Carter asked whether the sheriff could use that space if the juvenile facility were to eventually to be shut down.

Mayfield said he wasn’t familiar with the inside of the building, but didn’t think it would be large enough to accommodate the personnel.

Grennell said revamping the available portions of the building for the sheriff’s office would likely not be feasible and steered the conversation back to negotiations of the Callon building.

Mayfield said the first quote the county received to lease a portion of the building was between $5,000 to $6,000 a month, but that was eventually reduced to $4,000 a month plus utilities.

Hutchins suggested the sheriff consider an initial six-month lease of the space.

The county could assess the situation, Hutchins said, after that time to see if the sheriff’s office should stay there or look for another location.

Board members instructed Slover to work with the owners of the building to draw up a lease for the board to consider and possibly approve.

Slover requested it be noted in the minutes that he was not advocating for the sheriff’s office to relocate to that particular building.

Slover’s private law firm has offices in the same building.

In other news from the meeting:

• The board discussed an industrial prospect in executive session.

Slover said after the meeting the board gave him the authority to draft an agreement between the company and the county for approximately 5 acres of land and warehouse space on the former Rentech property.

Slover declined to release specific details of the contract agreements, but said the company would do staging work for drilling in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale oil and gas development in neighboring counties.

Slover said the move would bring a total of 25 jobs to the area.

“The deal isn’t final by any means, but this is just another step in the process to get this company here,” Slover said.