Sheriffs angered by proposal to cut prisoner payments
Tennessee currently pays $32 per day for each state inmate housed in a county jail above its certified capacity. In his proposed 2004-05 budget, Gov. Phil Bredesen hopes to save about $1.5 million by reducing the reimbursements to $16 per day.
County jails do not need the full reimbursement rate for housing prisoners above capacity, state officials said.
If approved, Davidson County could lose about $500,000 a year while Hamilton would be out almost $375,000. An estimated 28 other counties also could see lower rates because their facilities are sometimes overcrowded, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.
“This is as much about discouraging overcrowding as it is about reducing our expenditures,” Bredesen told a group of county officials Wednesday. “I hope it’s not too great of a hardship. And I also hope that you’ll weigh this against the new investments we’re making that will help counties in other areas of their budgets, like education.”
After meeting with county officials later in the day, Bredesen said he would speak with the Tennessee County Services Association to possibly lessen the burden.
“I understand this is pinching a couple of counties, and I’m going to see if there is a better way we can do this,” he said.
Hamilton Sheriff John Cupp said Bredesen’s proposal would be “disastrous.”
“We have subsidized the state’s costs to nearly $4 million over the last 10 years, and this is going to add to the burden,” Cupp said.
Bob Wormsley of the County Services Association noted medical costs outside of hospitalizations are not included in reimbursement payments, and the state stopped paying counties $15 a day to house pretrial detainees in 1990. That would amount to $30 million a year today, he said.
Jails in most counties can house state felons with sentences of one to three years and recently sentenced felons awaiting transfer to state prisons.
Of the more than 21,000 state prisoners in Tennessee, about 2,000 are housed in local jails, Department of Correction spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson said.
Hamilton County has reduced its inmate population from recent highs up to 725 prisoners to 554 currently, about 64 inmates over capacity, Cupp said. About 94 of those inmates are state prisoners, he said.
If the state reduced payments for the 64 inmates to $16 a day, the county would lose $1,024 a day in reimbursements, or $373,760 a year, Cupp said.
“If it were not for county jails holding state prisoners right now the state would be in the biggest mess you’ve ever seen,” Cupp said. “The governor would have to build God knows how many new prisons.”
Metro Nashville Finance Director David Manning said the loss would be significant in Davidson County.
“It’s a situation where we think the current system is much more reasonable, and any reductions it creates will mean more budget challenges,” Manning said.
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Tennessee state government: www.Tennessee.gov
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