Bed Fees Set At Springfield Municipal
The rates have been set: A bed at the Springfield Municipal Jail in Oregon is $60 a night. But the City Council’s decision Monday night to approve the fee did not come without a lengthy debate among the six-member board about whether the fee is fair, and whether the city can expect to collect enough from convicted inmates to break even for its efforts. This report from the Eugene Register-Guard.
Councilors’ approval, in a 4-2 vote, came with the caveat that they expect an update in six months on the fee’s effectiveness. “If this is something that within a certain period of time looks like it’s not working out … I see no point in wasting our time if it’s not cost-effective,” Mayor Sid Leiken said.
The 100-bed jail is expected to open in October, and initial estimates are that the inmate housing fees could provide $18,000 of the jail’s $2.5 million budget. But the ordinance will go into effect before the municipal jail’s opening, which means Springfield will soon begin charging inmates for part of the $109 a night the city pays for each of its five spots at the Lane County Jail …
Though he said he supports finding a way to charge inmates, Councilor Joe Pishioneri noted that many criminals are poor to begin with. “Are we squeezing blood out of a turnip?” asked Pishioneri, a special services deputy with the county jail. “We need to keep a very close eye on it to see if it is worth our while. “There’s a reason many institutions don’t charge the housing fee, because it’s just not worth it,” he said.
Lane County does not charge a jail fee, but Klamath and Douglas counties both have daily rates. Douglas County recently lowered its fee from $60 — the maximum charge allowed by state law — to $20 and is seeing better returns, jail administrators there have said.
When the Springfield OR jail opens this fall, about $200,000 will vanish from the coffers of the Lane County Jail in Eugene.