Montgomery lawmakers want to shorten the stay of inmates in county jails to save money.

For the third year in a row, the county council is supporting legislation that would prohibit judges from sentencing criminals to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility for more than 12 months, said Councilman Phil Andrews (D-Dist. 3). Report by Gazette.net.

Before fiscal 2010, the state reimbursed counties for all inmates held longer than 90 days. That year, the state cut its reimbursement rate to the county by roughly two-thirds, to $45 per day for each inmate held between 12 and 18 months. The state cut all reimbursement payments for those held less than a year.

Statewide, county jail systems have lost more than $25 million since the new reimbursement formula was implemented. Montgomery County lost $3.4 million in fiscal 2010 alone, said Arthur M. Wallenstein, director of the Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation.

“The bottom line is, the state’s decision not to reimburse the county for holding prisoners who stay longer than 12 months in our jails, costs the county a little over $3 million a year and this is the third year of that,” Andrews said.

The state’s old reimbursement formula paid county facilities based on the actual operating costs of each jail. In Montgomery County, the daily rate had been $141.18 for every inmate, according to Wallenstein. Because the reduced reimbursement rate also applied to fewer individuals, the cut was more painful, Wallenstein said.

The Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Boyds can hold as many as 1,208 inmates. Last week, there were 963 inmates, and at least 25 of them were expected to serve between 12 and 18 months, Wallenstein said.

State law gives Maryland judges the option of sending criminals with sentences between 12 and 18 months to either local or state facilities.

The county’s fiscal 2012 budget for corrections and rehabilitation is $64.26 million, with less than $500,000 projected to come from the state, said Craig Dowd, budget and procurement manager for the department.

Andrews said the cuts endanger the county’s jail rehabilitation programs, which include treatment for substance abuse and mental health issues, cognitive behavioral modification, basic education, life skills and workforce preparation.

“Without state funding, it creates considerable pressures on the system,” Andrews said. “It makes it harder for the jail to run any of their programs.”

Tammy Budgets, MD Montgomery County, Regional Jails, Sentencing

The Kansas City Council on Thursday approved a deal to send city inmates to a Jackson County detention facility downtown.  Report from KansasCity.com.

The ordinance authorizes city staff to proceed with a regional jail concept, committing $3.1 million annually to house 150 prisoners a day in the county facility. The city will also provide money for construction costs estimated at $2.1 million. The city hopes to save $1 million in annual city jail operations, and the aging Municipal Correctional Institution will close.

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A big break could be in the works for some West Virginia Counties when it comes to regional jail costs.  On Wednesday the Senate fast tracked a bill that would force the West Virginia Regional Jail Authority to pay back millions of dollars to counties.  Report from the State Journal.

The reason is because counties say the cost to house inmates is too high. In March the Regional Jail authority announced a surplus of more than $11 million.Cabell County Commissioner Scott Bias has been a supporter of the bill. He says the Regional Jail may have to pay as much as $17 million in jail costs back to the state Department of Corrections and many counties across West Virginia. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate. It now goes to the House for a vote.

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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.

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Cabell County WV Commissioner Scott Bias said the commission recently requested financial information from the Regional Jail Authority, and calculated that the system had $30 million more than it needed in its accounts for last fiscal year.  Report from the West Virginia Sunday Gazette.

“We have serious questions about their budget,” Bias said. “They’re building a huge surplus and charging the counties for it.”   Counties pay the jail authority a daily fee of $47.53 per inmate. In July, that will increase to $48.25.  Last week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Walt Helmick, D-Pocahontas, appointed a subcommittee to look at the jail authority’s budget.  The authority needs to “have a healthy surplus,” Helmick said. But every cost must be scrutinized, especially in lean times, he added.

Joe Thornton, deputy secretary of the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, said jail officials welcome the legislative review of the budget.  But he denied that the jail authority has done anything improper with surpluses.   State law allows the authority to keep a minimum of three months of operational expenses, about $19 million, “in case counties like Cabell don’t pay their bills,” he said … The authority understands the fiscal challenges facing counties, and has made sacrifices to keep the per diem as low as possible, he said. “With the costs of everything around us going up, the per diem is still lower than it was two years ago” when it was $48.50, Thornton said.

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When the Western Virginia Regional Jail near Dixie Caverns opens Friday, local officials will be breathing a sigh of relief.   Not only will the regional facility relieve overcrowding in the Franklin County jail, it will mean less man hours spent by deputies transporting prisoners, said Franklin County Sheriff Ewell Hunt.   Report from the Franklin News-Post.

“During the months of December and January, we logged 15,340 miles transporting inmates to other facilities,” Hunt said. “This consumed 613 man-hours, or the equivalent of two people, full time, doing nothing but transports.”   Hunt said the largest population of prisoners are now held at the Middle River Regional Jail in Staunton, which is a 220-mile round trip, a journey that was made by county deputies 37 times in December and January.  “Our current situation is tenuous,” said Rick Huff, county administrator, “because, beyond our own facility, we are operating on a space-available basis with jails as far as two hours (drive) away. The regional jail was our most cost-effective alternative to assuring that we will have a place to hold the inmates we are legally responsible for.”

Franklin County decided to join Montgomery and Roanoke counties and the City of Salem to build the regional jail about four years ago. The joint effort was chosen because the state has a policy of reimbursing 50 percent of capital costs for regional facilities. That means the three counties and one city will share in paying about $46.8 million of the $93.6 million total cost of the facility.

Franklin County’s jail was built in 1937 and certified to hold 49 prisoners. The county is currently responsible for about 200 inmates in 12 different facilities around the state and has no guarantee that those facilities will have beds available if the county needs them … The county plans to keep its existing jail open to house about 60 pretrial and workforce prisoners.

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Several cities in South King County WA announced Thursday an agreement to build a new jail to hold people accused of or serving sentences for misdemeanor crimes, and they have already selected a vacant 14-acre lot in Des Moines as the new jail’s home.

The project has moved much more swiftly than a similar one being planned to serve Seattle and cities in north and east King County … Penny Bartley, interim director of the South King County cities group, said her organization has been able to make progress because it has been working together longer than the other cities. The group is the South Correctional Entity, or SCORE.   “The thing to keep in mind is that the SCORE cities have been working together for about two years,” Bartley said. “We have put a lot of time and a lot of resources into this.”

The cities involved include Auburn, Burien, Des Moines, Federal Way, Renton, SeaTac and Tukwila. Together, they plan to build a single-story 668-bed jail in Des Moines. Development and construction is estimated to cost $80.5 million. Construction is expected to start in September …

All cities in King County are looking for a place to house their misdemeanor inmates, people accused or convicted of crimes such as DUI, assault, domestic violence, property crimes or traffic offenses.   Historically, the King County Jail would hold these inmates. But the county alerted cities in 2000 that it would run out room for misdemeanor inmates by 2012. That has become the target date for cities to build a new jail. Bartley said that even now, King County cannot handle the inmate load.

vericatrajkova County-City Issues, Overcrowding, Regional Jails, WA King County, Washington

A plan to build a $100 million regional jail for Brunswick, Dinwiddie and Mecklenburg counties in Virginia would alleviate the need for inmate space in all three localities dealing with overcrowded and inadequate local jails, local officials said.

The regional jail, which has been in the planning stages for nearly four years and was originally estimated to cost $150.2 million, will help the counties save money and will make the jail system more efficient in all three jurisdictions.  The project had not been included in the governor’s 2009-10 budget proposal, but this month legislators in both houses approved amendments to include the project in their respective budget bills, making it more likely that it will move forward in the next few years. A state funding match, however, may not be available until 2013.

The Meherrin River Regional Jail Authority, formed in early 2008, initially wanted to build an 800-bed jail but has scaled back its plans to 408 beds.  The current plan consists of building a main facility in Brunswick County, near Alberta, that will accommodate the pretrial and sentenced prisoners from Brunswick and Dinwiddie as well as the sentenced prisoners from Mecklenburg. A smaller satellite jail near the government offices in Mecklenburg will accommodate the pretrial and work-release populations from Mecklenburg … The facilities would be built with a capacity for expansion, and one superintendent would oversee both locations. Once the replacement facilities are built, the local jails will be closed, officials said.

The article from the Richmond Times-Dispatch is long and detailed, covering the history and the financing of the project.

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Washington County MS officials have moved another step closer to construction of a regional correctional facility, approving the issuance of up to $19.5 million in bonds, according to WDAM-TV.

The new prison will be a 500-person facility that will house 300 state prisoners and 90 city inmates. The remainder will be county inmates.  The money earned from housing state and city inmates will go to pay off the bonds for the construction of the facility.

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Jackson County MO and Kansas City officials on Tuesday filled in important blanks about how they would operate a new regional jail, according to the Kansas City Star.

• The third and fourth floors of the county’s Community Justice Building at 1305 Locust St. would house inmates once housed at the Municipal Correctional Institution;
• The Kansas City Police Department is discussing whether to use the new facility for short-term detentions of prisoners now housed in police headquarters. The county wants $500,000 to upgrade its building;
• The city would pay $57 per inmate per day, a total of $3.1 million for 150 beds. In addition, the city would pay an “intake fee” of $3 per inmate;
• The city, if it allows the county to supervise needed improvements at the Community Justice Building, would provide $1.4 million in 2009 and up to $600,000 in 2010. An alternative would be for the city to design and contract the renovations.

Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders said other Jackson County cities may wish to join, but the priority was to get a deal with Kansas City, which would provide the largest number of inmates.   Legislator Dan Tarwater said, “In these economic times, this is the kind of thing that everyone needs to look at.”

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