BATH

Control of the county jails has returned to the counties, but questions remain over how the funding formula should work for the $12.2 million in jail funds administrated by the Maine Department of Corrections.

LD 186, An Act to Reverse Jail Consolidation, became law on July 12 as an emergency measure to undo changes made with the jail consolidation law passed in 2007.

It is a work in progress, said Sagadahoc County Sheriff

Joel Merry, who served as chairman of the now repealed Board of Corrections, as he spoke about the implications for Two Bridge Regional Jail. That jail is shared between Sagadahoc and Lincoln Counties.

Merry said Wednesday that the final version of the law has significant impacts on Two Bridges.

The bill passed the House and Senate. However, $14.6 million in jail operations funding attached to LD 186 was reduced to $12.2 million in the Join Appropriations Committee.

Included in that figure is funding for community corrections, which includes diversion programs and programs to help reduce the amount of time people are in jail.

“I think it’s going to be challenging to maintain these operations under the funding,” Merry said.

The law does away with the Board of Corrections, Merry said, and keeps in place the caps for tax assessments, allowing them to be increased each year by the tax levy limit growth rate, or 3 by percent — whichever is less. The base assessment limit for Sagadahoc and Lincoln counties is $2.66 million.

Merry said it would have been nice to have the originally requested $14.6 million, and that $12.2 million is the same amount the jails have received for the fifth year. The lack of funding and the assessment caps have lead to a lot of cutbacks at Two Bridges, some of it programming.

Because the law wasn’t passed until July 12, the counties who run on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year won’t be able to build the cap increase into their budgets until the following fiscal year. Those with a calendar fiscal year have an opportunity to increase their assessment cap in the next six months, the sheriff said.

The $12.2 million will be dispersed among the counties based on the county jail’s average daily population for the year. The Attorney General’s office has been asked to clarify just how that formula works before it is applied. Merry expects an answer soon.

However, Two Bridges isn’t in the position to even consider raising its cap, Merry said.

“Our problem with Two Bridges is, can we cut the expenses over there?” Merry said.

The other question that remains is if the counties can charge a boarding rate for taking in inmates from other counties — a question that has to be answered by the AG’s office.

Under a strict interpretation of the law, Merry said he doesn’t believe counties can charge a boarding fee when they receive funding from the state general fund.

Two Bridges takes inmates from Waldo County, which doesn’t have its own jail, and does so through an openended contract, Merry said, rather than getting compensated on a per person, or per diem basis. The number of inmates from Waldo is as low as its been since Two Bridges started taking them in 2009, but a spike could be very bad for Two Bridges.

The financial implications of the law will largely depend on opinions sought from the AG’s office about boarding fees and the funding formula.

Merry will also be speaking with the Lincoln and Sagadahoc Multicounty Jail Authority Aug. 12, about accepting prisoners from counties do not currently have an agreement with Two Bridges. The jail now has seven or eight inmates from other counties with jails full to capacity that Two Bridges isn’t getting compensated for. Perhaps an open-ended contract is an option, but there is question as to whether or not those counties can afford to pay Two Bridges for taking inmates.

The current budget is based on 165 inmates but that number is closer to 130 if only including inmates from Sagadahoc, Lincoln and Waldo counties. If that is the case, “what are your expenses as opposed to a facility with 165 inmates?” Merry said. “We we’ve got to look at how we can try to squeeze out some additional savings.”

dmoore@timesrecord.com

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