Jail officials said the bus was transporting 10 state inmates to the Jim E. Hamilton Correctional Center at Hodgen, south of Poteau, when a tire blew out on the county jail bus. The bus was on U.S. Highway 59 and State Highway 9, just east of the highways' intersection in northern LeFlore County.
Jail officials said none of the prisoners on board the bus attempted to escape, and were returned by Sequoyah County deputies and the OHP to the county jail.
State prisoners, jail officials said, are taken to the Hodgen state prison once a week for sick calls. The county jail houses state prisoners as a means of support for the county jail, and about 30 are housed in the 114-bed county jail. The state pays $31 a day to the jail authority to house the prisoners.
Members of the Sequoyah County Criminal Justice Authority were hoping a sales tax voted on Tuesday would pass and help support the jail, but the tax failed by a vote of 865 against the tax and 802 for the tax. The proposition asked voters to consider a sales tax of two-thirds of one-half cent, with one-third designated for the jail's upkeep and one-third designated for the sheriff's office.
Authority members have said in the past that a one-third cent tax already levied for the jail brings in about $25,000 a month, and salaries at the jail alone are over $30,000.
