EPHRATA — Due to staffing shortages, visitation hours for maximum and medium security inmates at the Grant County Jail will be cut nearly in half, according to officials with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.

With two staff members taking medical leave, the jail will not have sufficient staff to accommodate the typical schedule of 5-10 p.m., Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, said Kyle Foreman, spokesperson for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office. Instead, hours will be reduced to 5-8 p.m.

Sign-ups begin at 2 p.m., and visitors must be signed up 10 minutes before or 20 minutes after the top of the hour, according to the county’s website. The last round of sign-ups is at 7:20 p.m.

Visitation sessions are capped at 30 minutes, and certain dormitories only allow one set of visitors at a time, according to jail staff. There will be no visits scheduled for the 6-6:30 p.m. block.

Due to budget constraints, Foreman said, the jail did not have the surplus staff to replace those on leave without cutting hours.

“We have as much staffing as the budget will allow us to staff with, so if we have two people who go out at the same time, it does create an impact on the staffing,” Foreman said. This significantly reduces the number of time slots available for visitors, who are already admitted on a first-come-first-served basis due to limited staff and can expect to wait at least an hour after they sign up on busy days, according to jail staff.

The sheriff’s office has pledged to build a new jail that can hold more inmates with the revenue from a 0.3 percent sales tax increase approved by voters in November, but it’s unclear whether money would be found to increase staffing to reduce waiting times. No formal discussions have taken place yet regarding staffing at the proposed new facility, Foreman said.

The reduced hours are expected to last to the end of March.

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.