The Madison County jail will switch its inmate phone service to one offered by Crown Correctional Telephone of Clifton, Texas that will also provide a new method to pay bonds or add commissary money and inmate’s account, as well as allow inmates themselves to order items from the commissary and pay through the system.

The new system, offered at no cost to the county, will also allow for video calls, though Madison County will not initially offer that feature.

“This will cut costs down, but we’ll still make good revenue,” jail administrator Dan Renfrow told county commissioners at their regular meeting Monday. Costs to inmates will go down, he said, but Crown Correction Telephone will increase the jail’s portion of the created revenue.

Visitors will also be able to add money to an inmate’s commissary account or even made a bond payment through the system, Renfrow said.

“We’ll have a kiosk set up where people can come up and put money on the books,” he said. “We won’t have to mess with money orders and all that.”

Renfrow said the jail was on a month-to-month contract with current phone provider Securus and will only need to give the company a 60-day notice to switch to Crown Correctional Telephone. In other moves Monday, commissioners

In other moves Monday, commissioners approved spending $923.67 on a new lockbox for the county tax office. The steel box will be set up outside the county courthouse and will include a video monitoring system.

“You know I’ve wanted a dropbox and I finally found one I can afford,” Karen Lane, Madison County tax assessor/collector to commissioners Monday. Lane said she had already budgeted for the setup.

The box will be emptied every morning.