The Maine Legislature will give an additional $4 million to the state’s county jails this year, but some sheriffs and county leaders in southern Maine say the funds are only a temporary fix for continuously rising jail costs.

It’s unclear how much money will be allocated to the jails in York and Cumberland counties. Cumberland County Manager James Gailey said the funding will be distributed through a formula based on the average annual number of people held at each facility.

Sheriffs have been fighting to receive more state funding for years. This past session, county and law enforcement leaders testified in support of a bill that would’ve raised the overall funding for county jails to $30 million.

But that bill was amended to allocate $4 million in unappropriated funds on top of the existing $20.3 million in baseline funding, rather than raising the overall funding as originally proposed.

Gailey said he believes the jails will receive the funds in late fall or early winter.

This is the third year in a row that the Legislature approved an additional $4 million to be distributed among the county jails, but previous years restricted its use to medication-assisted treatment.

Sheriffs in York and Cumberland County say while they appreciate the additional funding, it doesn’t cover the jails’ increasing needs, which include growing costs for medical and mental health treatment and correctional staffing. Their concerns align with other sheriffs statewide, who say without proper funding, taxpayers will feel the burden.

York County Sheriff William King said that during the three terms he’s served, it’s felt like state correctional facilities receive adequate funding from the Legislature while county jails are left behind.

“We … spend a lot of time on this issue year in and year out and frankly, we need something in place to give us automatic, justified increases,” he said in a written statement.

Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce said in an interview Friday that he hopes he and other sheriffs will renew their requests for more money next session.

Cumberland County officials already expect taxpayers to feel some financial pain since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stopped using the Portland jail to house its detainees. Funding from the federal agency accounted for more than $2 million in the jail budget this year.

While Joyce doesn’t know yet how much state funding Cumberland County will get, it won’t be enough to address rising costs.

“This isn’t fixed,” Joyce said. “This is a Band-Aid.”