Messenger-Inquirer
OWENSBORO, Ky. — After years of relying on housing state inmates to help make ends meet, county jails are seeing that revenue stream dry up.
An early release program enacted by the General Assembly last year is designed to decrease the state’s prison population, which has grown more quickly than nearly all other states’ in recent years. The program has been challenged in court but is continuing while the Kentucky Supreme Court prepares to rule on the case.
County jailers shouldn’t wait for that legal decision to change their focus to other ways to balance their budgets. Recent policy shifts designed to reduce Kentucky’s corrections population mean county jails won’t be able to tap into these revenues as they have in the past.
Under the early release program enacted in 2008, time inmates spend on parole is now credited toward their total sentence.
Parole violators have less time to serve once returned to prison, and those parolees who behave well have shorter parole terms. Through April, the new policy led to the release of more than 2,000 inmates with a savings of more than $22 million to the state.
The net result for the state is a smaller prison population. The net result for county jails is fewer state inmates to go around and more competition to house them.
Jails such as the Daviess County Detention Center have climbed over each other to house inmates -- and to receive the per diem check from the state that more than covers their costs. While counties have to pay to house their own inmates, who typically serve less than a year in jail on misdemeanor charges, state inmates can make the jail money.
Raising the per diem payment for housing a state inmate has been a main Frankfort lobbying focus for jailers in recent years. County jails, looking for ways to increase revenue, have asked for more financial help from the state in terms of a higher per diem rate.
But the early release program is just one piece of the state’s move to reduce its corrections population. The adoption of Senate Bill 4 this year means many people facing criminal charges will be sent to pretrial substance abuse treatment that could help them avoid prison time and reduce recidivism.
The legislature has started an overhaul of the state’s criminal code following years of increasing the number of felony crimes and lengthening prison sentences. The impact of that examination is expected to reduce the state’s prison population, which will further diminish the need to house state inmates in county jails.
Some county jailers are already looking at ways to manage their costs, including a push earlier this year to approve a cap on medical care rates hospitals can charge for treating inmates. Steps taken by Daviess County Jailer David Osborne beyond housing state inmates have helped the detention center end the fiscal year with a surplus.
And moving forward, jailers are going to have to be even more creative with their budgets rather than chasing the dwindling revenues available for housing state inmates.
Better to start making those preparations now than to wait until that well completely dries up.
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