Guam DOC Seeking Reimbursement
The Department of Corrections hasn’t billed the federal government for boarding transferring prisoners since 2005, and now the local agency hopes to recover about $500,000. News reported by the Pacific Daily News services.
DOC staff is working to calculate exactly how much money is owed and will submit a bill to the federal government soon, Director J.B. Palacios said yesterday.
If the Federal Bureau of Prisons agrees with the calculations, the money will be paid to GovGuam coffers, Palacios said.
The money is owed to DOC for short-term incarceration of transferring prisoners. For example, if a fugitive who is wanted in the mainland is caught in Guam, the local prison might hold him for a few days before he is shipped off island.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons is supposed to reimburse the local government for the cost of those prisoners, but the corrections agency stopped billing them in 2005, Palacios said.
“Clearly we are not going to fault anybody else,” Palacios said. “It was DOC who wasn’t billing.”
Although DOC owes about $7.5 million to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for Guam criminals that are held in off-island prisons, the $500,000 reimbursement can’t be used to offset part of that debt, Palacios said.
The reimbursement belongs to GovGuam, not DOC, he said.
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