Utah jailers are weighing their options, including implementing hiring freezes and possible layoffs, in the wake of a legislative session that left one of their financial lifelines vastly underfunded.
That lifeline — the state Department of Corrections' Inmate Placement Program — is being scaled back after the Utah Legislature declined to give the program some $8 million in supplemental funds.
The corrections department had lobbied for the additional funding to maintain and expand inmate placement, which allows prison officials to contract with county jails to house convicted felons.
Corrections had been overextending the $15 million program in anticipation of increased legislative cash, but now corrections leaders are at the chopping block and local jails, like Weber County, are scrambling to offset anticipated losses.
"As far as I know Weber County is basically taking it on the chin," said Wallace Shulsen, deputy director of the Inmate Placement Program. "All of (the state's local jails) are affected, but the county jail that got hurt the worst was Weber County."
Utah Sheriffs Association members are meeting with corrections officials this week in St. George to determine which jails, in addition to Weber, will be hit with the biggest cuts.
Weber County's new 880-bed jail houses 163 state prisoners for around $43 per inmate per day. The program results in a surplus for jails that can house convicts for less than $43 per day and also fills otherwise empty jail beds.
Weber jailers wanted to contract an additional 300 empty beds. With the cutbacks, however, Weber not only won't gain new beds, but its current prisoner allocation could be reduced to around 50.
The reduction would leave more beds empty and threaten the jail's ability to operate cost-effectively, which could hamper Weber's ability to pay off the huge construction bonds it took out to build the new facility.
And Weber is not alone.
Box Elder County Sheriff's Lt. Roger Lewis OIsen said large reductions could produce layoffs but, more likely, "We might end up with a hiring freeze."
"I'm disappointed with the state on their end that they didn't fund this," Olsen said. "To me it sent quite an alarm."
The alarm is sounding for many small counties that bank on inmate placement to fund lavish new jails. In fact, since 1996, 10 counties from Box Elder to Washington have built large jails chiefly because they could count on contract money to supplement costs.
"We need that money just to pay the bills," Garfield County jail commander Mel Miller said. "I think someone up there at the state Legislature fell asleep on this one." Members of the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee could not be reached for comment.
Housing state inmates has also created hundreds of jobs in rural counties like Beaver, Daggett, Garfield, Duchesne and others. Now, with more beds going empty, there will be fewer jobs and less money for counties, who, like Weber, still need to pay off huge construction debt.
The state, in turn, is similarly feeling the effects. Through inmate placement, corrections department leaders are able to reduce incarceration costs by paying county jails almost $20 less per day than it costs to incarcerate an inmate in a state prison.
To the financial woes add prison overcrowding, which will worsen as the program is trimmed from nearly 1,200 inmates to about 950 inmates by the start of a new fiscal year July 1.
Cell blocks are already 95 percent full and growing by 300 inmates per year, and corrections officials are facing the possibility they will have to release prisoners for lack of space.
"That's not something that we're anticipating doing immediately, but that's always something we have to consider," Department of Corrections spokesman Jesse Gallegos said.
Back at the county level, a push for other business is developing. Specifically, local jailers will be petitioning federal agencies and offering to house federal prisoners.
But with all county jails chasing the same federal dollars, some wonder how much federal money is out there — especially since urban jails in Utah, Salt Lake and Davis Counties, which don't participate much in inmate placement, already have contracts with federal agencies.
"I don't know, because I've never pursued (federal prisoners) until now," Olsen said. "You're going to have all these other jails pursuing the same avenues that we are."
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