Daily Independent (Ashland, KY) - Jails: A Crisis In The Counties

Deficits leaving little money for other county programs

Alban Wheeler wants a regional recreational center in Rowan County for seniors and young people. He’s located a site and hoped the project could secure state and federal funding — but times are tough.
“If we had $700,000 a year, we could float a bond and build the center,” said Wheeler, a retired sociology professor at Morehead State University.
So he approached Rowan County Judge-Executive Jim Nickell.
“He said it’s definitely something the county could do if it wasn’t for having to fund the Rowan County jail,” Wheeler said.
Last year, Rowan Fiscal Court spent $733,537 to cover the jail’s operating deficit.
“If we could use the $700,000 we have to put in the jail to subsidize the Corrections Department, we could pay the bond payments on a senior citizen center or ball fields,” Nickell said.
That’s not entirely accurate, according to DOC Commissioner John Rees. He said the problem isn’t simply the cost of housing state prisoners in local jails. Some counties actually make money on state prisoners — it’s the county prisoners, misdemeanants, and the small sizes of jails which cost counties so much money, he said.
Ultimately, Rees and others say, the state must build larger jails to realize the economy of scale. But, the real solution, he along with several others say, is reducing the number of inmates.
For instance, Rees said, the state presently has 466 felons convicted of flagrant non-support, failing to make child support payments.
“Anyone who doesn’t pay for their kids is the sorriest sort of you-know-what,” Rees said. “But we’re already paying AFDC or food stamps for the kids. Don’t lock them up. They’re sure not going to make their payments from jail.”
And at $32.67 per day, times 466 times 265 days a year, taxpayers are out more than $5.5 million for those deadbeat parents.
Wheeler, the retired sociology professor, said we put far too many people in jail for what used to be considered minor crimes. And many of them have drug problems which cause them to commit relatively minor crimes, he said. Still, that doesn’t help with the recreational center.
Nickell understands all of that. But he also understands the public doesn’t see the relationship between a “get tough on crime” public policy and what it costs in quality of life projects if county budgets weren’t sapped by the jails.
“Jails are not an important issue to most people,” Nickell said. “I think there’s some awareness jails are an issue, but I don’t think the average person understands what jails cost.”
Alban Wheeler does. Right now, the Rowan County jail is costing $700,000 a year from tax revenues — and the multi-county recreational center it would pay for.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

January 20, 2008 11:27 pm

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Spiraling jail costs ravaging county budgets

Fred Yaden’s job is simple — protect the public and lock up those who commit crimes.
But it’s getting harder for the Laurel County sheriff — he has less money each year and may have to reduce his staff of deputies or cut back services, including doubling up deputies in one patrol car or stop monitoring school crosswalks.
Laurel County Fiscal Court cut Yaden’s budget by $167,000. In fact, the county cut every department but one, and laid off 14 employees. The one department which got an increase? The jail.
Since 2003, the jail’s allocation from the county’s general fund has grown from $525,000 to $1.5 million. (Jailer Jack Sizemore declined to be interviewed.)
“If we don’t have a sheriff’s office, then why do we even need a jail?” Yaden asks. “They’ve loaded up the county jails with state prisoners. You’ve got to have jails, but you’ve also got to have a sheriff’s office.”
It’s not just the sheriff’s office which is paying to “get tough on crime.” Laurel County Judge-Executive Lawrence Kuhl said the county cut funding for volunteer fire departments from $447,000 last year to $329,000 in the current fiscal year.
The funding pays to install fire hydrants in residential growth areas, Kuhl said. When the fire hydrants aren’t installed, homeowners’ insurance premiums go up.
Laurel County isn’t unique. An audit by state Auditor Crit Luallen in 2006 found county jails in Kentucky had a cumulative deficit of $119 million. It’s now up to $128.5 million, according to Vince Lang, executive director of the County Judge-Executives Association. Statewide, only the jails in Calloway, Casey, Grayson, Henderson, and Marion counties take in more money than they spend — by housing state and federal prisoners.
The cost to taxpayers isn’t just financial. It costs services and quality of life projects as counties turn over more and more of their general funds to operate jails. Some spend more than half their budgets subsidizing jails. Forty have closed their jails but have to pay to house prisoners in neighboring counties.
State inmates and misdemeanor offenders jailed on county charges are overcrowding jails to the point that prisoners sleep on floors, locked in “pods” or “dormitory cells” with up to 16 inmates. Minor offenders are sometimes locked up alongside serious criminals and sometimes become victims.
It’s ravaging county budgets. So a recreational center isn’t constructed in Rowan County; roads aren’t paved in Greenup County; and sewer lines aren’t extended in Barren County.
How did it get this bad?
According to Robert Lawson, law professor at the University of Kentucky who wrote most of Kentucky’s 1974 penal code, the public demanded politicians “get tough on crime” in the 1980s.
They did.
In 1970, Kentucky had 2,838 state prisoners, none in county jails. By 1980, the number had grown to only 3,723, still with none in jails. But then the legislature, responding to public demands, toughened penalties for existing crimes and passed laws creating new ones. State prisons became overcrowded and the federal courts ordered a cap on their populations.
Lawmakers said to counties: We’ll pay you to take our prisoners.
In 1983, 564 state prisoners were housed in county jails. By 2000, 15,444 inmates were incarcerated in Kentucky. Today, it’s 22,489 (the state added 1,800 prisoners in the first 10 months of 2007 alone) and 8,000 of them are in county jails.
During the same period, said Sen. Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, the Department of Corrections budget went from $7 million to $390 million.
Ours became a lawless society — or did it?
“The crime rate is just about the same as it was in 1970,” Lawson said. “But the inmate population has skyrocketed.”
Lawson, using Bureau of Justice data, said the crime rate in the past 35 years is up about 3 percent while the population has grown about 28 percent. But the incarceration rate has grown by 600 percent and the number of inmates in county jails, according to Lang, is up 500 percent.
Most of the crimes are drug related. Lawmakers stiffened penalties and made it harder for inmates to receive parole. They’ve created incentives for police to charge defendants with multiple counts during commission of one crime, thereby increasing sentences. Fewer are paroled and the time it takes to come to trial has increased while bail levels have also gone up, so fewer receive pre-trial release, further crowding jails.
Alban Wheeler, retired sociology professor at Morehead State University, said part of the problem is inflationary. Stolen items which 10 years ago cost less than $100 and carried misdemeanor penalties now cost two to three times that amount, making their theft a felony.
He said most crimes are committed by young adult males in the 18 to 24 years of age range. But that population has decreased at the same time inmate populations have exploded.
“Something’s out of whack here,” Wheeler said. “It tells me we are putting far too many people in prison and jail.”
Funding hasn’t kept pace
Lang said the state provided $14 million in funding in 1983 to county jails through a bed allotment formula. That was before jails began housing state inmates. Today, with county inmate populations up 500 percent, the allocation is roughly the same.
Instead of increasing the 1983-originated annual allotment, the state has steadily increased the per diem rate it pays counties to house state prisoners, and this, according to nearly everyone interviewed, made counties dependent on state inmates.
“Counties have been economically forced into this,” said Tommy Turner, Larue County judge-executive. “And we were encouraged to do that by the state.”
“The only reason jails want state inmates is to generate revenue,” Lawson said. “And the only way they can generate revenue that helps them is to overcrowd the jails.”
The state pays counties $32.67 per day for each state prisoner, according to Lisa Lamb, DOC spokeswoman, and some counties estimate they can house prisoners for less — $25 a day in Barren County’s case. But that doesn’t include Barren County’s debt service on its existing jail. That increases the cost to $34 per inmate per day. Lang estimates the real cost is $50 per day and he notes the state charges counties $94 a day to house their juvenile offenders.
Kuhl, the Laurel County judge-executive, said his county conducted a feasibility study on a new jail which would cost about $22 million and house 600 prisoners.
He said the new jail would cost Laurel County about $1.3 million a year in debt payments. It’s already paying $416,000 a year in bond payments on its existing jail — the one which is eating up the county’s general fund.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

January 20, 2008 11:25 pm

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Building bigger won’t solve problem, some say

A few years ago, Leslie County decided to construct a new 140-bed jail at a time it had about 20 county prisoners, thinking it could produce revenue by housing state prisoners. Construction is complete, but the jail never opened and stands empty.
“If they open it, they’ll bankrupt the county because of the minimal ongoing costs,” said John Rees, Kentucky’s commissioner of the Department of Corrections. “They can afford the debt service but they can’t afford the operational costs. Even if you filled it up with all state prisoners, it bankrupts the county because it’s so small.”
Rees pointed to Leslie County when asked if a county can “build its way out of the problem” of growing jail costs. Only five county jails in Kentucky take in more money than they spend. The others produced a combined deficit of $128.5 million last year and it’s now up to close to $140 million.
But many jailers — and some county judge-executives and magistrates — believe they can build larger jails and make money by collecting the state per diem of $32.67.
Leland Cox, Barren County jailer, said more prisoners make for a more efficient jail. Fixed costs are about the same but more state prisoners bring in enough money to run the jail without a subsidy — currently about $480,000 a year — from the county’s general fund.
“You can’t do it,” Rees said — unless it’s on a regional basis serving multiple counties. Nearly everyone interviewed for this story said individual counties cannot build jails which will be self-sufficient. Rees said all five which break even or make money do so by housing federal prisoners at the higher federal per diem rate.
“Our studies show it takes $50 or more a day to serve an inmate, and the state’s paying us $32.67 a day (for state inmates),” said Vince Lang, executive director of the Kentucky County Judge-Executives Association. “The counties have to pay the state $94 a day to house our juveniles. How can counties make it work?”
Cox said his jail can house a state inmate for around $25 per day while drawing $32.67 per day from the state. But the $25 per day doesn’t include existing debt service. When that cost is factored in, it costs Barren County $34 a day for each prisoner. A new jail would increase the debt payments.
The present debt service is paying for a wing constructed in the late 1990s to house juveniles. The jailer at the time and an architect promised the county could make money by collecting state per diem payments for housing juveniles from other counties. But then-Gov. Paul Patton persuaded the legislature to construct regional, state-operated juvenile facilities. Barren County never saw the promised profits and now must pay the state $94 a day to house its own juveniles.
Rees says regional jails are the solution, and Barren County’s location and its deteriorating existing jail actually make it a candidate for a regional jail.
“But I also told the county judge (Davie Greer) not to do anything until you see what the state is going to do,” Rees said.
The Department of Corrections performed an analysis for Union County last year on whether it should build a new jail. It showed the county should not build a new jail.
“We said not only is it not needed,” Rees said, “but you ought to close the jail you’ve got open now.”
It’s a 45-bed jail with an average daily census of 50 inmates. Last year, the county put in $635,000 from its general fund to operate the existing jail. By eliminating operating costs and staff, Rees said, the county could save more than $500,000 a year — even after paying to house its prisoners in another county and purchasing a couple of vans to transport prisoners.
Greenup County Judge-Executive Bobby Carpenter doesn’t need convincing. He’s seen enough of what jails do to county budgets.
“If I had the money, I still wouldn’t build a new jail,” said Carpenter, who saw $713,000 from his general fund spent on the jail last year. “It’s not ever going to work.”
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. He can be reached by e-mail at rellis@cnhi.com.

January 20, 2008 11:24 pm

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Building bigger won’t solve problem, some say