CROWN POINT | State efforts to lower local property tax bills are having the unexpected consequence of boosting the Lake County Jail's population and public spending on inmate medical expenses, region legal officials said Thursday.

Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez told members of the County Jail Oversight Committee they face a jail overcrowding crisis next month because the Gary Police Department will close its collection of 20 transitional jail cells within the Gary Public Safety Building. The move will send between 60 and 80 detainees per week directly to the county jail for incarceration.

Dominguez said state law requires him to accept the inmates and absorb the cost of their upkeep, which will top $1.2 million annually.

He said the surge will push the county jail's headcount, which stood Thursday at 947 men and women, to a point near or beyond its capacity of 1,040 beds.

"When the jail's population goes over 1,000, we must change our jail clinic into an infirmary," he said. "We will go from having a doctor 40 hours a week to jail doctors 24/7. We may have to increase the support staff, too."

He said he is asking his staff to calculate the additional cost of upgrading to an infirmary and employing additional correctional officers.

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay said Thursday he told Gary Police Chief Lawrence Wright to cut his budget in anticipation of a drop in tax revenues next year because of Indiana's property tax reform bill, which caps individuals' tax bills at 2 percent of their homes' assessed values. It is expected to sap $47 million next year from Gary, its airport, bus agency and other related taxing units.

"House Bill 1001 is a real torpedo coming at the city. We do not have any alternative except creative thinking of where we can save money in different places," Clay said.

The sheriff said he fears East Chicago or Hammond, which will have to cut millions of dollars from their 2009 budgets, may make the same move. The Hammond jail holds 94 inmates. He said that might necessitate the construction of a new county jail annex similar to the addition that opened in 2000 at a cost of $30 million.

The sheriff said stress on the county jail comes less than a month after county commissioners took away space for 44 inmates from his work-release program, which he said acts as a pressure-release valve on jail overcrowding. The program houses minor criminals in the old Parramore Hospital.

County Commissioner Gerry Scheub, D-Schererville, who sits on the oversight committee, said Thursday he cannot support spending tens of millions on new jail construction or passing a local income tax to spend the county's way out of the crisis.

He said he will look for budget cuts and spare space in every available county building, including an unrenovated portion of Parramore Hospital.

"Finding money for that renovation just went from the background to the front page," Scheub said.