MT STERLING, Ill. — As communities across Illinois watch as unpaid water bills for Illinois prisons continue to grow, one such community may finally call it quits and opt to shut water off to the state prison in its town.

Mt. Sterling City Council members are expected to vote Monday on whether the water at the local state Western Illinois Correctional Center should be shut off.

At this time, delinquent water payments have built up over the past two years to around $400,000.

City officials have said that if the water was shut off, the state would be forced to either truck in water from another municipality for the time being or remove the prisoners from the facility by law. Before prisoners could then return, inspectors would first look over the facility for any problems that must be fixed first.

Numerous Illinois communities are each owed hundreds-of-thousands of dollars for water provided to state prisons and other state facilities across the state, including Centralia and Vandalia.