2009-12-03

If you build it, will prisoners come? Apparently not

By Judith Pannebaker

Just a couple of months after the new Bandera County Jail and Justice Center opened for business on Highway 173 North, commissioners found themselves in the unenviable position of having to cut the rates charged for housing out-of-county prisoners.

Last summer, touted as a revenue producer for the county, Sheriff Weldon Tucker suggested charging $50 a day. Due to empty cellblocks, he returned to the court with a different proposition on Monday, Nov. 30.

Paucity of prisoners
“When we were sending prisoners to be housed out of county, we paid $50 to $55 per day,” he reminded the court. Apparently the fiscal largesse doesn’t cut the other way, however. Prior to recommending the rate of half a C-note, Tucker admitted, “I should have surveyed what our competition charges."

To determine the roots of the paucity-of-prisoners problem, Tucker said he had phoned Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown. “Randy said, ‘I didn’t know you were opening a Holiday Inn up there. If you could get it to $45, you’d have more people’,” Tucker told the court.

The fact that commissioners set the jail fees after most counties had approved budgets for fiscal year 2009-2010 didn’t help either. According to Tucker, Brown indicated if the county fees were decreased, “He could have five female prisoners here tomorrow.”

One commissioner noted, however, that a “brand new facility” ought to warrant charging a higher fee.

Competition undercuts
According to Tucker, both Crystal City and Kerr County currently house out-of-county prisoners for $37 per day. DeWitt County charges $45 per day. He also said that Gillespie and Medina counties routinely “farm out,” respectively, 25 and 23 prisoners, paying an average of $40 to $45 per day per prisoner.

Another problem, Tucker said, is a “flush of prisoners” that routinely occurs once a year. “We lost 11 prisoners to the TCD,” he added. “Our numbers are down along with everyone else.”

“It’s a question of supply and demand,” said County Judge Richard Evans, who also noted that as the number of inmates increases, the cost to house them would decrease. However, neither Evans nor anyone else could hazard a guess regarding the bottom line of housing inmates.

Inmate costs
“That I don’t know,” Tucker replied when Precinct 2 Commissioner Bobby Harris asked the cost of housing an inmate.

Again, Harris was the only elected official to take umbrage at – or even question – the present situation. “Where was the $37 or $40 per day when we were housing prisoners out of county?” he asked. “We’ve paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars at $50 a day to house our prisoners.”

Evans said that Comanche County charges only $35 a day for out-of-county prisoners but that the roundtrip is 400 miles, which doesn’t make for a cost-effective alternative.

“Well, if that’s the case, the roundtrip isn’t cost effective for Medina County either to drive 400 miles a day,” Harris countered.

Better than nuttin’?
Reasoning, “I’d rather have $45 a day than nothing,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Bruce Eliker made a motion to reduce the per diem charge at the county jail to $45 per day. Precinct 4 Commissioner Doug King seconded the motion.

A still unconvinced Harris declared, “I don’t want us to become known as a discount jail. They’re going to send all the scum to Bandera County. You’ve also got to think about who visits these people. I think $50 a day is fair. We paid it for years.”

Evans noted that the county reserves the right to refuse to house certain prisoners. “All we have to do is call (the authorities) and tell them to remove a prisoner,” he said.
Tucker asked if he could make the necessary changes quickly without having to rewrite the current contract.

County Attorney John Payne recommended that commissioners give the sheriff authority to “deal with this on a day-to-day basis.”

However, Evans felt it imperative that the contract be adjusted later.

Commissioners approved the motion to reduce the daily charge from $50 to $45 per day by 3-1 with Harris casting the lone “nay” vote.

Crunching numbers
“I find it incredible that the sheriff doesn’t know how much it costs to house a prisoner. We could very well be taking taxpayers dollars to subsidize out-of-county inmates,” Harris said later. “I also find it troubling that none of the other commissioners seem to care about this except me.”

Crunching numbers from the Bandera County budget for fiscal year 2009-2010, the Bandera County Courier came up with some interesting calculations.

Factoring in jail salaries and benefits at $896,340, operating supplies of $253,000 and capital outlay of $1,200, the jail costs $1,150,740 to operate annually.

Since the annual payment on the entire jail and justice center is $880,045, the Courier deducted half of that total, using the figure of $440,022 as annual payment on just the jail portion of the facility. This payment, added to $94,134 budgeted for the wastewater treatment facility, increased the total jail cost to $1,684,896 per year.

Using that number, housing an average of 85 prisoners would cost roughly $19,822 per year and $54 per day. After deducting the $45 per day paid by out-of-county law enforcement agencies, local taxpayers are left to pay a tab of just over $9 per day to house out-of-county inmates. Fewer inmates equates to more alarming figures, however.

Read & weep

For example,
• An average of 70 prisoners will cost $66 per day to house, leaving local taxpayers to subsidize out-of-county inmates at $21 each.

• 60 prisoners will cost $77 per day to house, costing local taxpayers $32 to subsidize housing each out-of-county inmate.

• 50 prisoners at $92 per day to house will cost local taxpayers $47 of subsidization.

• 40 prisoners at $115 per day to house will cost local taxpayers $70 of subsidization.

• 35 prisoners at $132 per day to house will cost local taxpayers $87 of subsidization.

Since the budget is calculated on an average of current occupancy, it must be assumed that food, uniforms and overall supply costs will also rise with an increased number of inmates. It would not be unusual for supply costs to double or triple if 60 to 70 inmates were to be incarcerated in the new jail.

Currently, 33 Bandera County inmates and one prisoner from Real County are housed in the new jail and justice center.