Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset can operate on a $1.6 million budget, so long as boarded inmates from other counties and states go elsewhere, jail administrator Col. Mark Westrum said.
Considering the jail budget amounted to roughly 20 percent of the county budget for 2009, Jail Authority members are concerned about the funding support the jail may or may not receive from the state.
A budget work group for the State Board of Corrections (BOC) has pushed forward a budget for the county jail system they hope will eventually be approved by the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. According to Westrum, the state’s four flagship jails including Two Bridges and county jails in Somerset, York and Cumberland counties, can slide by on a combined $4.7 million budget, but would have to turn boarded inmates away.
The flagship jails, four out of a total 15 county jails in the state, are larger and have capacity to house more inmates. However, jail officials with Two Bridges have said the decreased rates the state pays for transferring inmates doesn’t cover all the costs.
According to Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett, the working group co-chair, the BOC has reaffirmed their budget request to Gov. John Baldacci in the amount of $3.5 million, a figure group members say is what they received from the state for the current fiscal year and a figure they anticipate for the upcoming fiscal year.
The group has also submitted a request for an additional $1.4 million in response to a revenue shortfall and expenditure increase.
Westrum and other county officials are concerned the state might not provide the needed $3.5 million, and even if they do, it would create a financial burden on the BOC in determining how to distribute the money.
“If it’s $3.5 million, the system collapses,” Westrum said. “Two Bridges Regional Jail can’t house inmates from other counties or other states without the funding.”
Brackett said the BOC has the authority to distribute the money, however, and can hand out extra funds to certain county jails to match increased inmate populations.
“We want to make the best use of these jails,” Brackett said, adding that the flagship jails are poised to get more in state funding.
County commissioners and jail officials are concerned, because the state changed rates paid to the county jail to house boarded inmates from $85 per day down to the marginal cost of $22.96 per day.
Brackett said state funds help make up for lost revenue in decreased boarding rates. He said the funds distributed to county jails are calculated by county and state inmate populations.
All the same, state funding amounts to just over 10 percent of the jail budget. The remaining 90 percent comes from revenue brought into the jail and property taxes. Westrum and Brackett both say the decrease in revenue can be blamed on a sharp decline in federal inmates boarding overnight at county jails.
Two Bridges can charge more for the federal inmates transferring to and from other jails, but Westrum said they haven’t had as many of these inmates due to a number of factors. One is a new federal correctional facility in New Hampshire, which draws federal inmates to its facility and reduces the need for overnight accommodation at county jails in Maine.
Even in spite of the budget squeeze facing all state departments, Brackett said jail consolidation will save money over the long-term. He compares the Lincoln County Jail as it was before the Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties built Two Bridges.
Sagadahoc County inmates, for lack of a jail, would have to go elsewhere and the county was responsible for associated costs. The Lincoln County Jail housed considerably fewer inmates and faced the same cost burdens in locating space for increased inmate populations.
County jail budgets before consolidation totaled about $60 million, Brackett said, five percent of which came through funding from the state. He said the budget growth rate has declined significantly since consolidation.
According to working group co-chair Denise Lord, who is also the Deputy Commissioner of Corrections, jail consolidation has realized a decrease in the budget growth rate to less than two percent. Before consolidation, the budget growth rate was an average nine percent per year. Brackett said the collective county jail budget should realize cost savings as time progresses.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. “There’s no guarantee we’ll get $4.9 million.”
The working group, and the county jails, won’t know what amount of funding the state will allow until the Legislature finalizes its budget sometime in March.
In the meantime, working group members and legislators will discuss the issue until a figure can be reached. The BOC has until May to finalize its own budget.
