She worked for Two Bridges Regional Jail before the building existed, as the jail authority’s first employee. She saw the jail through its construction, through the state’s effort to consolidate county jails, and through the recent legislative effort to unravel consolidation.
On Oct. 5, Mary Sue Weeks worked her last day at Two Bridges Regional Jail. Weeks’ position, executive assistant to the correctional administrator, in addition to Two Bridges’ human resource officer and administrative assistant positions, was eliminated.
The reduction in force was needed due to Two Bridges Regional Jail’s budget issues, Lincoln and Sagadahoc Multicounty Jail Authority Chair Mark Waltz said. With the jail already down correctional officers, cuts to administration were the quickest fix to a budget in crisis since L.D. 186, An Act to Reverse Jail Consolidation, became law.
“We miss her already,” Two Bridges Regional Jail Correctional Administrator Col. Mark Westrum said. “We miss the other folks too. Unfortunately, tough business decisions have to be made when revenue doesn’t match operating expenses.”
As one of her responsibilities, Weeks helped prepare draft budgets for Two Bridges Regional Jail. Unable to rely on state funding due to errors in the legislation, which distributed state funds to counties where inmates originate as opposed to the jails where inmates are housed, Weeks was unable to make the draft budget balance, she said.
“I thought it was temporary,” Weeks said. “I really thought in January the Legislature would fix this glaring error.” Unsure and unable to wait for the Legislature to address the problem, the jail authority reduced the only line item in the budget it could – personnel.
“It’s sad to see the jail I saw come to fruition as a skeleton of itself,” Weeks said. “It’s probably one of the best-run jails in the state and it’s been skeletonized. It’s 100 percent because of that legislation,” she said, in reference to L.D. 186.
Weeks was the first person employed by the jail authority in January 2004, a month after the authority’s first meeting. An artist by trade, the Bremen native had started work for a temp agency to earn money between commissions.
After short stints at the Lincoln County Courthouse and Registry of Deeds, she was called back to work as a temp for the jail authority as the plans for the regional jail were being laid. “There was nothing in place,” Weeks said.
From the basement of the courthouse, Weeks set up health insurance, retirement accounts, and payroll for Two Bridges’ future employees. She established tax-free numbers from the state and tracked the $24.8 million in bonds that would be used for the jail’s construction.
After approximately three months as a temp worker, the jail authority hired Weeks on a full-time basis. Westrum, sheriff of Sagadahoc County at the time, was chair of the jail authority and pushed for Weeks’ full-time appointment. “From the beginning we recognized her talents,” Westrum said.
There have been three jail administrators in Two Bridges’ lifespan – Westrum, Wayne Applebee, and George Miller – and Weeks worked with all of them. First from the basement of the courthouse, then from a trailer during the jail’s construction, and finally from inside the completed Two Bridges, Weeks was there for every step of the process that created the jail.
“Every little thing in that jail was considered,” Weeks said. “The screws, the nuts, the toilets, the doors. Everything was thought about until finally we got the design down.” Two Bridges was created as a direct-supervision jail, where most of the activity, such as meals and recreation, occurs in the pods where inmates are housed.
In her almost 12 years of service, some of the most memorable moments came from the construction trailer Weeks and Applebee worked out of during Two Bridges’ construction in 2005. Eight people on the transition team were crammed into the trailer, Weeks said.
From the trailer, nearly 400 applications were processed to hire 40 correctional officers. Weeks can remember walking through the jail when the industries room, women’s unit, and central control were just blocks on a floor.
Weeks can still remember how confused she became when a solid wall was constructed. “I didn’t know how I was going to walk through (the jail),” Weeks said, laughing at the memory. On Nov. 26, 2006, Two Bridges Regional Jail opened its doors.
“I had no idea what to expect,” Weeks said. “Was it going to be like it was on TV? But that jail operated like clockwork. You could hear a pin drop when you walked in there.” Inmates used to say Two Bridges was the Hilton of county jails, Weeks said.
Even when the jail struggled with overcrowding under the Maine Board of Corrections, the jail functioned well. “It was due to the training,” Weeks said. Other direct-supervision jails requested training from Two Bridges due to the jail’s reputation, she said.
Weeks was there not only for the physical construction of Two Bridges, but also for the changes in legislation that transformed a regional jail, which planned to charge outside counties boarding rates to fund the jail’s construction, to a flagship jail that was forced to board out-of-county inmates and had to rely on the state to reimburse it for the expense.
“She was loyal to a fault,” Westrum said. When Westrum took over as administrator from Applebee, Weeks served as his executive assistant. For the three years Westrum served as chair of the Board of Corrections, Weeks worked triple duty and never complained, Westrum said.
“We were supposed to get funding from the state, but we had to fight to get what we did,” Weeks said. “We were flat-funded for several years. That was bad enough, but this law (the Legislature) passed in June is absurd.”
The original optimism among Two Bridges’ administration about the legislation to reverse jail consolidation quickly disappeared when they realized they would not be able to charge boarding rates, Weeks said.
In a bare-bones budget passed by the jail authority months after the beginning of the fiscal year, a personnel reduction was the only way to make ends meet, Waltz said.
“The Legislature is going to have to do something,” Waltz said. “We’re coming to a crisis in the system. Two Bridges is a wonderful facility with a lot of wonderful employees. It’s too bad Augusta has made it so hard to operate.”
According to Westrum, the transition after the loss of three administrative positions has been difficult with many people picking up additional duties and responsibilities not included in their job descriptions.
The loss of Mary Sue Weeks, someone who has been with the jail since before it existed, has been particularly difficult, Westrum said. “The void I already feel since she left is tremendous,” Westrum said. “It’s going to be painful as we move forward.”
Weeks will be officially retired at the end of the month, she said. She plans to return to her previous career as an artist and will continue to paint the sets for plays at Lincoln Academy, she said.
She takes with her many fond memories from Two Bridges – from the families of inmates who personally thanked her for helping them through a difficult time to the programs and services provided to inmates.
“The original values and mission (of the jail authority) was rehabilitation, not warehousing,” Weeks said. “I was so proud of all the programs we had. It would break my heart to see all the great things we did get cut or minimized.”
Above all, Weeks said she will remember the people she worked with. “I didn’t come from a corrections background,” Weeks said. “I didn’t have a clue what I was in for, but the staff was wonderful. I got to work with a lot of good people.”