BANGOR – Hancock, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset and Waldo county officials are working to solve a common and devastating problem – crowded county jails, Penobscot County officials said Tuesday.

Penobscot County Administrator Bill Collins said officials in Penobscot and Somerset counties met last week in Bangor to discuss the possibility of Penobscot County shipping prisoners to the new $30 million Somerset County Jail when it gets built in 11/2 years.

“It’s something that we have to take a good hard look at,” Commissioner Stephen Stanley said Tuesday. “It’s regionalization. I’m not saying that it will solve all of our problems, but we will look at it, just to see if there are any cost savings.”

A problem plaguing most Maine county jails, crowding is getting particularly acute in Penobscot County, which is licensed to hold 182 prisoners but averages about 205 per day. Most of the extras get shipped, or “boarded out,” to holding facilities in Aroostook, Piscataquis or Lincoln counties, Collins said.

Under the tentative plan Penobscot County is considering proposing, Somerset County would take inmates sentenced 35 days to nine months, to cut down on court transportation fees, Collins said.

“We don’t want to take people back and forth every day,” Stanley said.

Somerset County’s timeline projects picking a contractor by late May, with construction to begin shortly after that. Construction should take 18 to 19 months, then a phased occupancy will begin. Administrative offices will be opened first, along with a single housing pod that could be used for training purposes, Somerset County officials have said.

A record number of inmates in the state system has the state Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee pondering a range of options, including boarding inmates at a private prison in Wyoming to a takeover of the county jails. No decisions have been reached.

One potential selling point to a Somerset deal: the new jail must be staffed to capacity from Day 1, which has made Somerset County officials interested in ensuring capacity, Collins said.