Regional Jail Closes Pod To Save Money
The Virginia Northwestern Regional Jail Authority will cut costs this year by keeping more than 100 beds — an entire housing pod — empty. Report from the Winchester Star.
“It’s saving us money in man-hours and utilities … around a half-million dollars,” Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center Superintendent Bruce Conover said Thursday after the authority adopted its $17,299,092 budget for fiscal year 2010. The budget, which takes effect July 1, is $1,573,984 lower than the current budget of $18,878,477.
The jail’s tighter budget is a ripple effect spreading from local governments’ efforts to cut spending. The detention center is funded mainly by contributions from Winchester and Frederick, Clarke, and Fauquier counties. For the next fiscal year, all of those localities are reducing their contributions … Along with closing the pod, the jail authority is cutting costs by eliminating 12 positions it expects will become vacant this year through attrition, and by cutting weekend meals for prisoners to just brunch and dinner … The detention center is built to hold up to 824 prisoners. It has 533 now, and has housed an average of 510 to 530 inmates per day for several months.
Conover said Thursday that closing the pod will save the jail money that would have been used to feed, clothe, and guard inmates who would have been housed there. However, while housing inmates in the now-vacant pod cost money, it also generated revenue … According to Conover, the pod last year housed around 100 federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement prisoners who have since been transferred to a larger facility, and around 40 prisoners from Prince William County who stayed at the detention center while the Manassas jail was expanded. Conover said the detention center collected $717,000 in revenue from housing those prisoners.
Economic Issues, Regional Jails, VA Northwest Regional Jail, Virginia