By SCOTT DAUGHERTY
The Maryland Gazette
Despite record crowding and an increased reliance on overtime at the jails, county administrators will not seek $1.17 million in state money this year to expand Anne Arundel County’s two jails.
Robin Harting, superintendent of the county’s detention centers, told officials from the state Department of Budget and Management last month that the County Council would not commit at this time to the $70.9 million project - 45 percent of which would be covered by the state. She then withdrew her request for the first installment of the state money.
“I couldn’t in good conscious ask the state for money in fiscal 2010,” she said, explaining that without the county’s money the project cannot move forward. She plans to try again next year.
There was no guarantee the county would have received the money even if it asked for it. Still, this almost guarantees the county will continue to cram inmates into the Jennifer Road Detention Center and Ordnance Road Correctional Center until at least 2013. Both facilities already are at or exceeding capacity.
Councilman Josh Cohen, D-Annapolis, said the jail was a victim of the poor economy.
“It’s a shame, but it’s not surprising given the current economic situation,” he said. “The government is going to have to defer projects, even important ones like the jail expansion.”
County leaders in May scrapped an early version of the jail expansion, choosing to take $2 million in design money from that project and put it toward repairing Folger-McKinsey and Belle Grove elementary schools. County schools have a $1.5 billion backlog in capital projects, according to a recent study.
In July, however, Ms. Harting and Alan Friedman, county director of government relations, attempted to revive the plan. They told the council the jails were dangerously full and asked them to give their immediate written commitment to a three phase, six-year expansion so the county wouldn’t lose its place in line for state money.
Mr. Friedman proposed the county commit to $2 million for design and planning in fiscal 2010 to show the state that the council was committed to funding the entire project.
Several councilmen, however, questioned the nature of the project and if the county could afford it. Some also worried that it would create a bad precedent for the council to commit to such a large capital project outside of the normal budget cycle.
Council Chairman Cathy Vitale, R-Severna Park, said she did not know the administration had nixed the expansion project and was surprised to hear them citing a lack of support on the council.
“I don’t recall them specifically asking the County Council (since July),” she said.
Mr. Friedman, County Executive John R. Leopold’s point man on the jail expansion project, was unavailable to comment about how he made that determination.
Ms. Vitale said she last spoke to Mr. Friedman about the jail two weeks ago, when she and Councilman Daryl Jones, D-Severn, proposed an alternative: The now-defunct and vacant Maryland House of Correction in Jessup.
In interviews with Capital Gazette Newspapers, county and state correctional officials largely panned the House of Correction idea. They called the prison, which was built in 1879, “antiquated” and “dangerous” and not worth a retrofit.
There were a record 1,367 inmates at the county’s two jails on Aug. 30 - 192 more than their official capacity. There were 1,274 inmates in the jail last weekend, 99 more than capacity.
Ms. Harting said the average daily population of the two jails was 1,153 in 2007, up from 876 in 1999. She said consultants have projected the county will need 1,634 beds by 2012 and 1,877 beds by 2017.
Ms. Harting plans to include another $2 million in design money in her fiscal 2010 budget - which will go before the council in May - and ask the state for money again next
Copyright 2008 Capital Gazette Communications, Inc.