District 53 Rep. Les Fossel (R-Alna) has agreed to sponsor legislation to repeal an existing state statute that mandates specific funding levels for corrections, including, in Lincoln and Sagadahoc County, the budget for Two Bridges Regional Jail.
“I would be joyous to introduce the bill – no problem at all,” Fossel said during a Nov. 29 meeting with the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners and the Lincoln County Budget Advisory Committee.
Fossel was responding to a statement from Commissioner Sheridan Bond. “The Commissioners are united,” Bond, a member of the Board of Directors of the Lincoln and Sagadahoc Multicounty Jail Authority, said. “We feel that the law should be just plain repealed.”
The state needs to “allow the counties to go back to running their own jails,” Bond said.
Fossel said he could “certainly” get the remainder of the Lincoln County legislative delegation to co-sponsor the bill.
The Lincoln County share of the Two Bridges Regional Jail budget, including debt service for the jail’s construction, represents over 36 percent of the total county budget -$3.8 million.
Funding for the jail has been and continues to be a source of contention between Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties.
On Oct. 26, 2009, Lincoln County filed a lawsuit against Sagadahoc County in an effort to enforce the terms of the cost-sharing agreement between the towns that existed prior to the enactment of 30-A M.R.S. § 701, also known as the jail cap.
The local PSAP, the Lincoln County Regional Communications Center, currently serves all of Lincoln County. As of June, the center also serves the Kennebec County towns of Farmingdale, Pittston, Randolph and West Gardiner.
“We want to make sure Lincoln County is one of the PSAPs and we want to keep the four Kennebec County towns,” Bond said.
“There’s another city in Kennebec [County] that wants to come this way – they would do it tomorrow,” Commissioner Bill Blodgett said.
“It is appropriate to allow towns to switch PSAPs if they can get better service at a lower cost,” Fossel said.
“In no sense am I trying to discourage consolidation,” Fossel said. As the addition of the Kennebec County towns is, by definition, a consolidation, the state is “getting precisely what they want,” he said.
Fossel and the Commissioners also discussed methods of maintaining regular communications between local officials and the Lincoln County legislative delegation, including the possibility of holding regular breakfast meetings.
“That’s a good way to catch us on our way north,” Fossel said.
