Two Bridges Regional Jail Authority’s finance committee planned to present next year’s budget to the full panel May 9, but the committee’s chair Peter Lepari said it was still considering whether to present a deficit budget or one in the black.

At issue is funding full employment. The jail has been short on staff for several years. Last year, the Authority submitted a deficit budget. Almost all the deficit for FY 2017-18 is in this year’s surplus due to the jail’s shortage of correctional officers. Besides jobs frozen due to funding gaps, the jail is still short nine employees. At least three hires are expected via an in-house academy, Administrator James Bailey said. Bailey would prefer a 2.5 percent cost of living raise for workers, and leaving out of the budget jobs likely to go unfilled.

Sheriff Todd Brackett suggested the committee base personnel funding on history, saying he believed it would better position the jail with the state. “I’m suggesting that we budget for what we’re actually spending. We have to battle with the state every year, and we’re getting very good at overcoming whatever roadblocks the state throws at us, but I think we’d be in a better position if we budgeted for what we’re spending instead of what we someday hope to be able to spend. If we spend more than that, we can always revise it or use the surplus to pay for it.”

Brackett said a $200,000 surplus makes the jail’s strain difficult to show the state, even though it started with a deficit budget. “That would put us in a better position to explain why we need the funds the state is cutting,” he said.

The committee will look at the issue later this month and decide, then present the budget to the Authority June 13.