Not sure exactly how the phone system you are using works, but yes, they charge ridiculous amounts for phone calls through any corrections department phone. You might want to try what my mom did when I was in custody. She went online and set up a cheap phone number that she hooked up to her phone which had the same area code as where I was being held at. Her number was in state but a different county. Phone calls were costing anywhere from $5 - $9 per phone call before, but with the new area code, they went down to $2.50 - $5

And, the calls might even be cheaper if you set the phone to the area code from where the calls are coming through. The jail I was at originally had set up with a call center from Texas, so the area code was a Texas code routed through California. They changed that recently to a California area code, but I'm thinking that if she would have set her phone up with the Texas number it might have even been cheaper. It cost her something like $10 - $20/month for the phone, but I was able to make 7 or more calls on the $25 she put on as opposed to 2 calls before.

Watch out for doing this. It won't work in Colorado. You have to actually live where your area code is located. The DOC is very particular about this.

But everyone has cellphones now. If I lived there, then moved, I would still have the same cell number. I don't see how it would be an issue. Anyways, if worked for me, and was quite a bit cheaper.

Here in Ohio we also use offender connect. You can set up where you can only call you or set it where you put money on his phone account but he can use it to call anyone who is on his approved list.
I actually had a phone number from down where my husband is at till Ohio dropped their prices on calls as it was a lot cheaper.

Thank you everyone. We live in the same area code as the correctional facility he's at. He called collect tonight, so I don't know how this impacts what's setup on his account. We only put a small amount in just to see if it works. I did find an article from a different state that uses the offender connect. It stated collect calls are $3.50 and if they use the pre-paid minutes on the account calls are $3.15. Both were for 20 minutes conversations. I'll check his account tomorrow to see if anything was taken from the account as we only talked for a few minutes. Again thank you for all your comments.