An annual tour of Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset for local legislators will have special meaning this year and, for the first time in the history of the tour, the public is invited to attend. Scheduled for Friday, Dec. 11, the tour has previously focused on the budget crunch created by the lack of promised state funding for flagship jails, or jails that house out-of-county inmates, through the now-defunct Maine Board of Corrections.
This year, the tour will focus on the brewing crisis in the county jail system created by the Legislature in its effort to reverse jail consolidation. With state funds to Two Bridges Regional Jail reduced to $76,000 for 2015-2016, as opposed to $1,839,831 in 2014 and 2015, the jail has compensated for the shortfall with a dramatic reduction in personnel.
In addition to the loss of the jail’s human resources officer, administrative assistant, and executive assistant to the administrator, Two Bridges Regional Jail has had to eliminate a full-time teacher position, Two Bridges Regional Jail Correctional Administrator Col. Mark Westrum said. With several corrections officer positions vacant, the remaining programs officers may need to be shifted to work security, Westrum told the Lincoln and Sagadahoc Multicounty Jail Authority at its Nov. 18 meeting.
Two Bridges’ low inmate count is one of the only factors making the staff shortages tolerable, Westrum said. As some county jails surpass their maximum capacity and reach critical levels of overcrowding, Two Bridges continues to see a low inmate population, jail authority members said, due to the jail authority’s decision to not serve out-of-county inmates unless payment is received.
An Act to Reverse Jail Consolidation, Public Law 2015, Chapter 335, became solidified law when the Supreme Court ruled in July an attempted veto of the legislation by Gov. Paul LePage came too late. The legislation contributed to the statewide crisis in the county jail system by eliminating counties’ ability to charge per diem boarding rates for out-of-county inmates.
The legislation simultaneously created a distribution formula that gave state funds to the county the inmate originated from, as opposed to the jail where the inmate was housed. The jail authority has looked to contract with outside counties as a solution to the problem of receiving compensation for out-of-county inmates without being able to charge a per diem boarding rate.
A $1.2 million contract with Waldo County is keeping Two Bridges out of bankruptcy, jail authority members previously said.
Other counties, however, do not have the funding to support their own jails, let alone enter into a contract with Two Bridges to house their overflow inmate population, county officials said. Property taxes were the only remedy to the lack of state aid for county jails offered by the legislation.
The amount Lincoln County was statutorily obligated to raise for Two Bridges Regional Jail due to the legislation was $2,657,105, Lincoln County Administrator John O’Connell said. Lincoln County has the ability to raise the property tax assessment established in the legislation by 3 percent annually, according to the legislation – an ability the county has yet to exercise.
Lincoln County expenditures for Two Bridges already compose 34.8 percent of the projected county budget for 2016, a budget county officials are under pressure from municipal leaders to keep low. Expenditures for the jail already are projected to total $3,803,427 of the county’s projected $10,928,696 budget for 2016.
In the projected budget, the jail assessment for Two Bridges Regional Jail is $2,420,839, payment on bonds taken out for the jail’s construction is $892,125, and the budget for jail diversion programs and transportation, run by the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, is $490,463.
For the first time since the annual tour of Two Bridges was organized, the public is invited to attend and property taxpayers can see where their tax dollars are being spent. On the heels of a defeated floor amendment to fix the problems in An Act to Reverse Jail Consolidation before it became law, the Maine County Commissioners Association and Maine Sheriffs Association are currently developing a message to take to legislators to elicit support to fix the system.
The lobby groups are torn between asking the Legislature for additional state funding, or for an amendment to An Act to Reverse Jail Consolidation to fix the glaring problems in the legislation contributing to the crisis in the county jail system, jail authority members said. Talking points for the Legislature are expected to be complete by the Dec. 11 tour.
Jail officials will hold a meeting with legislators Friday, Dec. 11 at noon, followed by a public meeting all are invited to attend at 1 p.m.
