WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved spending $499,890 to expedite the purchase of two boilers for the Trumbull County jail.

County Sheriff Michael Wilson on Tuesday told the commissioners the purchase is critical because if the current 30-year-old boilers become inoperable, the county would be required to send prisoners elsewhere.

The county is looking at purchasing the boilers from Wadsworth Service, 7851 Freeway Circle, Middleburg Heights. Wadsworth Service is under the state purchasing program.

The county is able to purchase the boilers without competitive bidding through a state program because it is replacing the boilers due to possible emergency concerns.

Darrel Dunagin, the county’s facilities manager, recommended the emergency purchase because of the cold winter being experienced.

“If the boilers go down, there’s no heat,” Wilson said. “What do we do with our inmates because we can’t house them? If we have to send inmates out, not only will there be the cost and the expense of transporting them, but also $65 to $150 per day per inmate.”

Commissioner Denny Malloy said the jail has more than 300 prisoners.

“To bid this out could be months and months down the road,” Malloy said. “We did hire a consultant, Advance Engineering, over the last couple weeks that gave us recommendations that will allow us to save money. We are able to save taxpayer money in the way we are doing this.

“These things will last another 30 to 50 years,” he added. “We are going with high efficiency 94% and up boilers. They will save us more than $1.5 million just in fuel over the lifetime of the boilers.”

Malloy said the county would not want to be in a situation in which there is no heat in the jail.

Commissioner Rick Hernandez said the commissioners acted immediately after learning about the need for the new boilers during the past 10 days.

“When we find out a problem, we try to correct it,” Commissioner Tony Bernard said.