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State savings on prisoners might cost counties more
Legislative committee will hear testimony Tuesday
FRANKFORT — The state may transfer “up to thousands” of Class C and D inmates into in-home incarceration, using global positioning monitoring devices and saving the state money but costing county jail budgets.
That has county officials, who are already looking to sue the state over jail costs, concerned and two county judge/executives hope to share their concerns Tuesday with the General Assembly’s Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary which is also looking at ways for Kentucky to reduce its corrections budget.
Campbell County’s Steve Pendery and Larue County’s Tommy Turner will ask to testify before the committee about the impact of moving Class C and D felons from county jails, according to Turner.
“My jailer came to me (Monday) and said they are taking seven people from our jail,” Turner said Monday afternoon after a meeting of the Criminal Justice Council, charged by Gov. Steve Beshear to look at ways to reduce inmate populations and costs.
At around $32.50 a day for each state inmate, Turner said, that’s more than $227 a day and $80,000 a year. Last year, the LaRue County Jail ran a $50,000 a month deficit.
Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown said there is no specific target for the number of inmates who could be placed in GPS monitoring devices and in-home incarceration.
“I don’t have a target number in mind,” Brown said. “But I suppose it could be up into the thousands.”
Brown was asked how that might affect county budgets.
“My job for the commonwealth of Kentucky is to find the most efficient way to run the Department of Corrections,” Brown said.
Kentucky has the fastest rate of increase in inmates in America and jail and prison populations have grown from about 3,000 inmates in 1970 to nearly 22,000 now while the corrections budget has grown from $7 million annually to close to $400 million. County jail costs have spiraled as well –—mostly from county or misdemeanor inmate costs — but 8,000 state inmates are housed in county jails at roughly $32.50 a day. Counties which can house those prisoners for less than that amount can use the difference to subsidize the costs of county inmates.
But as the legislature and Beshear look for ways to reduce the state corrections budget, some ideas pit the state against the counties.
Department of Corrections Commissioner Ladonna Thompson said Monday about 155 inmates have been moved from county jails to in-home incarceration since spring, roughly doubling the total. Eligibility criteria include Class C and D inmates who committed crimes in which no death was involved and have no more than 18 months left on their sentences and have no active domestic violence order pending.
But those are prisoners the state pays the counties to house and removing them costs counties, most of which are already straining to pay for jails. Last month, the County Judge/Executives Association voted to sue the Justice Cabinet, the Finance and Administration Cabinet and the legislature, hoping to force the state to pay for the time prisoners are in jail before sentencing but for which they often receive credit on their total sentence.
Vince Lang, Executive Director of the County Judge/Executives Association, said counties feel left out of the discussions about how to respond to growing costs and incarceration rates.
“More inclusion of the counties in the discussion about saving money would make us happier,” Lang said.
He said 50 counties have passed resolutions supporting the intention of the KCJEA to sue the state seeking funding for the time prisoners serve in county jails before they are sentenced. That is often months, but the state does not pick up the tab until after the prisoner is sentenced and those sentences often give the prisoner credit for the time he served in the county jail against his total sentence. The counties and KCJEA contend that cost belongs to the state. Lang said he expects the suit to be filed before Labor Day.
Brown actually wore one of the GPS devices over the weekend and was tracked to determine how effective it is. He said at $10 a day, the device is much more effective than those currently in use which rely on a land based phone line and cost $4 a day.
The GPS device can be programmed so it will send an alarm if a prisoner enters predetermined off-limits areas such as a residential neighborhood of someone who has sworn out a domestic violence order against the prisoner. Current systems do not have that capability.
Brown said even at the higher cost, the $10 a day would be a significant savings over the $32.50 per diem rate to house the prisoner in jail. That’s what worries Turner and Lang.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.
