By Kevin Canfield
Tulsa World, Okla.
TULSA, Okla — Housing federal inmates at the Tulsa Jail is essential to the financial viability of the entire Tulsa County criminal justice system - not just the jail, county officials say.
“It is one big pot of money that pays for the operations of the courts and court services as well as the jail,” said Undersheriff Tim Albin. “Those funds offset all of those costs.”
The Tulsa Jail has been overcrowded for nine straight months, and the Sheriff’s Office has said it expects to be over budget by $1 million.
The Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority oversees and approves budgets for not only the jail, but also for court services, courthouse guards, specialty courts and other court-related functions.
For the current fiscal year, the authority’s budget is approximately $34 million - $27 million of which is budgeted for the jail.
The authority is funded primarily through a countywide quarter-cent sales tax dedicated to jail operations. This fiscal year, the sales tax is expected to raise approximately $25 million.
Additional revenue - most jail related - comes from telephone service fees, prisoner monitoring fees, interest and other fees.
The largest source of revenue generated by the jail comes from fees paid by the federal government, the state of Oklahoma and the city of Tulsa - in that order - to house their inmates in the jail.
In the current fiscal year, for example, the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement combined will pay the authority an estimated $4.65 million to house inmates, followed by the state Department of Corrections at $2.5 million and the city of Tulsa at $450,000.
During the same period, the authority is expected to pay $3.8 million to provide court guards and $1.8 million to fund court services.
Without the federal contracts, the authority would not have the money it needs to fund the other entities it oversees, county officials say.
“Let’s say we didn’t have that other income. We would have to cut somewhere,” said Tom Gerard, Tulsa County’s fiscal officer.
“The jail couldn’t ask for as much money, or court services would have to be eliminated, or who knows what.
“And we have to fund court guards by state law.”
Albin said the Sheriff’s Office anticipated the need for increased revenues from the first day it took over operations of the jail from Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America in July 2005.
The authority decided to seek new proposals for running the jail after CCA struggled with a $2.9 million deficit.
“Our original budget was $19.6 million, but we knew that was going to be a number that was going to be going up because we knew $19 million was going to be a baseline with salaries” and other expenses, Albin said. “We knew those costs were going to go up.”
In response, the Sheriff’s Office began looking for additional revenue sources.
“We already had the U.S. Marshals’ inmates,” Albin said. “We chased ICE around for a good year, went to conferences we knew they would be at.”
The Sheriff’s Office also met with corrections officials from the state of Wyoming about holding their inmates, proposed making part of the Tulsa Jail an assessment center for DOC and even explored working with the Tulsa County Juvenile Justice Center to house young people, Albin said.
“We were exploring any alternative we could find,” he said.
For a brief time in April, the Sheriff’s Office refused to receive city of Tulsa inmates at the jail - the latest episode in a decades-long dispute over how much the city should pay the authority to house municipal inmates in the jail.
The city currently pays $45 per inmate per day for the first 35 municipal inmates housed in the jail. When the daily municipal inmate count exceeds that number, the rate increases to $54.13 for each additional person.
The Sheriff’s Office is paid $30 per inmate per day to hold DOC inmates, $59 per day per inmate to hold inmates for the U.S. Marshals Service, and $54.13 to hold ICE inmates.
The Sheriff’s Office would like to see the city pay $59 per inmate per day to house its inmates, as well as expand the definition of a municipal inmate.
The proposed changes would increase what the city pays to $2.7 million a year.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the jail had 1,776 inmates on Friday - 62 more than its official capacity of 1,714.
Albin and other county officials dismiss the notion that removing the federal inmates would solve the overpopulation issue, noting that the inmate count has recently exceeded 1,800 and is estimated to hit 2,000 this summer.
With those kinds of numbers, pulling the 200 to 225 federal inmates typically in the jail on any given day wouldn’t resolve the overcrowding issue, Albin said.
“And we wouldn’t have the revenue,” he said.
Inmate contracts
Each government agency pays the Sheriff’s Office a different amount for holding its inmates in the Tulsa Jail based on what it believes to be an appropriate fee. The fee paid by the Department of Corrections, for example, is set by the Legislature. Tulsa County and the city of Tulsa negotiated the city’s inmate fee.
The Sheriff’s Office estimates it costs at least $59 a day to house an inmate.
Here is what the various agencies pay per inmate per day:
U.S. Marshals Service - $59
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement - $54.13
City of Tulsa - $45*
Dept. of Corrections - $30
* The fee increases to $54.13 per inmate when the daily municipal inmate counts exceeds 35.
Criminal Justice Authority Revenue FY 2010-2013
The Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority oversees the entire Tulsa County criminal justice system. The Tulsa Jail, also known as the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center, is operated by the Sheriff’s Office and falls under the purview of the authority. The jail accounts for most of the authority’s income and expenditures.
ACTUAL
2010-2011ACTUAL
2011-2012 ESTIMATED
2012-2013
Sales tax $22,713,821 $24,018,463 $24,924,089
DOC inmates $2,347,299 $2,592,756 $2,500,000
City prisoners $0.00 $400,906 $450,000
Bond release fee $155,643 $187,483 $150,000
Community sentencing $7,866 $4,627 $2,000
U.S. Marshals Service $1,589,959 $1,766,963 $1,650,000
ICE $2,320,457 $3,600,104 $3,000,000
Misc. $1,674,245 $1,083,655 $1,353,130
Total $30,809,288 $33,654,956 $34,029,219
Source: Tulsa County