FAYETTEVILLE — The backup of state prisoners into county jails will continue without any immediate financial relief to the counties.

That is the situation, despite a growing chorus of complaints from county sheriffs who want an increase in how much the state pays them to hold its prisoners.

While that’s bad enough, it seems as if the counties will be lucky to be paid at all.

Prison officials expect to run out of money to reimburse the counties by the end of December.

What’s more, a decision to delay opening 360 new prison beds will “exacerbate the backup in the county jails” and further increase what the state will owe to counties, according to a recent memo to the Board of Corrections.

The Legislature allocates money in the state prison budget for reimbursement to counties for holding the state’s prisoners.

The amount set aside for this fiscal year, which will end June 30, 2010, was $7.5 million.

Those dollars get doled out to counties at the rate of $28 per day per prisoner. State prisoners may be held in jails from the time they are sentenced to prison until they can be transferred into the system.

That’s been the reimbursement rate for a decade now, although the actual cost is arguably much more. Even the prison system acknowledges it costs the state close to $60 a day to incarcerate someone.

Sheriffs, who have found an ally in state Rep. Allen Kerr, R-Little Rock, were looking toward next year’s special fiscal session of the Legislature for a higher rate.

Kerr is himself a former member of Pulaski County Quorum Court and therefore isacutely aware of how this policy impacts county budgets. He tried unsuccessfully last year to get the reimbursement rate increased to as much as $40 a day. In the current budget climate, he - and the sheriffs - would settle for an incremental increase.

How likely is that to happen?

Not.

Consider the fact that Gov. Mike Beebe recently called for almost $100 million in cuts to the state budget, including spending reductions for the Department of Correction and a cut in the reimbursement fund itself.

Like every other state agency, this one must trim its spending to match reduced revenue projections. On Monday, the Board of Corrections did so, squeezing more than $9 million in cuts from the budget. When they were done, there was no money to operate those 360 new prison beds, which were to have become available in December.

Obviously, that decision also delays when 360 of the roughly 1,600 backed up prisoners can be transferred into the state system. Those offenders will stay in county jails - or be free - until there is room for them in the prisons.

Under the circumstances, the counties should worry about stacking up IOUs, instead of reimbursements, from the state.

Granted, prison officials willask the Legislature to increase the reimbursement fund. They want to carry forward $2 million they have in last year’s budget that the Legislature must appropriate for this purpose.

And they’ll seek a supplemental appropriation of $6 million more for reimbursements through the end of the fiscal year.

Trouble is, asking and getting are two different things.

Sheriffs know that fact all too well. This song and dance between the state and counties over prisoner reimbursements has been going on for a halfcentury or more. The dollars involved were less, but the situation was the same.

If convicted offenders were to be held, the counties held them until the state made room for them in the prisons.

The counties took whatever reimbursement the state would pay, whether it really covered their costs or not. And, usually, they were reimbursed until the state appropriation ran out, just as it apparently will in December.

Part of the problem, of course, is the number of people who are being convicted and sentenced to prison. The number spirals ever upward and not all those people necessarily need to be in prison.

Beebe has been making that point lately to state prison and law enforcement officials, judges and prosecutors. He’s encouraging them to look for new punishments other than incarceration, especially for nonviolent offenders.

That appeal isn’t new either.

Others have suggested the same - usually when the prisons and jails are full or when budgets are tight.

BRENDA BLAGG IS REGIONAL EDITOR FOR THE NORTHWEST ARKANSAS TIMES AND COVERS GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/04/2009

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