Sen. David Trahan (R-Waldoboro) plans to appeal a recent Maine Legislative Council decision to reject his proposed bill that would repeal current corrections systems.
“That was the first round of bill requests, and they’re most often rejected,” Trahan said Tuesday. “We have an opportunity to appeal the decision.”
Current legislation has called for unification of county and state services under state supervision. The consolidation effort has impacted the operation of Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset in unique ways.
Trahan introduced one of four proposed bills on corrections laws before the Legislative Council for the 124th Maine Legislature’s consideration, all of which would have repealed the laws governing the coordination of state and county corrections services. It failed by a council vote of 9-1.
County officials argue the legislation has created a quagmire of problems for Lincoln and Sagadahoc Counties in their joint venture operating Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset to house their inmates.
Trahan said he plans to follow instructions from Lincoln County Administrator John O’Connell and other county officials in drafting the bill if it is allowed for consideration in the second round of Council hearings Nov. 5.
If there is no support for repealing correction consolidation efforts, the two counties could at least draft some legislation that would fix or improve some of the problem areas in the current legislation, Trahan said.
“In my opinion, we could at least amend the process to make it more workable,” he said.
O’Connell has been outspoken in calling for repeal of the law and has been attending various state Board of Corrections (BOC) meetings, including the most recent one on Oct. 21.
“We don’t think it’s going to work,” he said this week.
O’Connell voiced his disturbance over the council’s recent rejection of all four pieces of legislation with only one of them receiving a close vote of 6-4 against amending the laws governing budgeting for York County introduced by Sen. Richard Nass (R-Acton).
Another proposal calls for repeal of the laws requiring coordination of state and county correctional services and a fourth proposal calls for making improvements to the laws.
O’Connell listed three main objections he and other county officials have to the laws as currently enforced. “For one thing, the funding is not there,” he said.
After attending last week’s meeting, O’Connell said the BOC talks about things as if the funding is there, but he wonders from where? O’Connell also objects to the lack of county representation on the board. “As a result, the counties are coming up short,” he said.
A third main contention O’Connell has with the laws unifying the correctional system is the state has imposed its rulings requiring the housing of its inmates in the same housing pods as its county inmates at Two Bridges.
“They don’t match up,” he said. “Their idea of medium to low [risk] is not the same as our medium to low.”
Two Bridges is the only bi-county facility in the state. Its expenses are shared between Sagadahoc and Lincoln Counties and it is operated by an independent governing authority, all of which put it in a different category than a regular county jail with cost-sharing issues.
The two counties have also complained about the cost the state pays for housing its inmates as being way below federal amounts and what other counties pay to house their inmates at Two Bridges.