Felons soon will pay an extra $25 a month for the chance to stay out of jail, under a Douglas County Community Corrections financing plan approved Monday.

“If you do the crime, you ought to pay the bills,” said Jere McElhaney, chairman of the Douglas County Commission. “If it goes to $50, it won’t hurt my feelings.”

Commissioners unanimously approved a 2003 comprehensive plan for Community Corrections, a county operation that supervises people convicted of crimes but not yet sentenced to jail or prison.

Instead, the operation’s clients  currently 126 are supervised, with another 14 cases pending  subject themselves to random drug testing, house arrest, anger-management classes or other programs designed to protect the public’s safety while ensuring that justice is served. Clients already pay some dedicated fees, such as when they test positive for drugs.

But monthly, across-the-board fees long have been avoided, said Ron Stegall, the county’s chief executive probation officer who runs the program. The current overall fee is $50 a year.

“These offenders, most of them have limited resources,” he said. “They’ll have $25 less per month to pay court costs or restitution.”

But not charging a fee could have left the program in even worse shape, Stegall said. Without a cushion of revenue, community corrections could be forced to cut staff  such as the county’s lone surveillance officer, who visits clients’ homes to administer random tests for drugs and alcohol.

Without such supervision, Stegall said, the program would lose its effectiveness.

The $25-a-month service charge goes into effect June 1, and Commissioner Charles Jones figures that it’s worth it.

“Twenty-five bucks for your freedom is not a bad deal,” Jones said.

Commissioners also agreed to grant Stegall’s request for using about $20,000 in “reimbursement” revenue to defray personnel costs in corrections.

The reimbursement money is collected from adult offenders who pay fees for services required through community corrections.