Tom MacCallum

Richmond County Daily

With the Richmond County Jail budget increasing for the 2009 to 2010 fiscal year, the last thing Sheriff Dale Furr said he wants to hear is the N.C. Legislature talking about increasing his costs.

The N.C. House Appropriations Subcommittee for Justice and Public Safety has been considering a plan to cut an $18-a-day reimbursement to counties housing state inmates.

Furr said anyone sentenced in court for any amount of time is a state inmate and the county is reimbursed for their time in the county jail.

At the county jail, the county picks up the tab for inmates sentenced for child support offenses and those defendants awaiting a hearing in court.

On Monday, there were 87 people housed at the jail. None were inmates sentenced to prison. Richmond County Superior Court is in session this week, so there may be some defendants going to prison after sentencing this week.

Furr said he didn’t have an exact figure for the cost of maintaining an inmate at the jail, but $18 does not begin to cover the cost.

In the 2008 to 2009 budget, the cost of operating the jail was $1.3 million. Averaging 80 people a day in the jail comes to $17,216 a year per inmate or $47 a day. The jail expenses represent five cents of the 81-cent county tax rate.

With the opening of the new Richmond County Judicial Center in 2010, the new budget proposes some $1.8 million which would come to $22,656 per inmate or $62 a day for over seven cents of the 81-cent county tax rate.

The new proposed budget will save some of that expense by delaying hiring new jailers until six months after the budget is adopted.

Furr said any effort to retain state inmates in the Richmond County Jail would play out as it has in the past. “We just delivered inmates to the Departmet of Correstion for their custody,” he said.

The county jail has a limit of 72 inmates. At one time, circumstances were such that as many as 160 were housed there.

Included in the new $1.8 million budget are extra costs with inmates which cannot be easily anticipated.

While in the custody of the county, defendants awaiting a hearing or child support inmates are entitled to medical care and $36,000 has been allocated for medical supplies. Medical services are listed at $30,000.

Defendants in the jail sometimes have to be transferred to state prisons for “safekeeping” for medical treatment or their personal safety or that of others.

During May, five people from the Richmond County Jail sent for safekeeping cost Richmond County taxpayers $3,097.

In the new budget, $73,181 is allocated for that purpose. County inmates sent to state prisons are the financial responsibility of Richmond County.

County Manager Jim Haynes in presenting the county budget said county commissioners needed to be aware that the N.C. Legislature could interfere with the county budget since it expected an estimated $4.6 billion revenue shortfall for next year’s state budget.

The situation wth prison inmates is one consideration for the legislature.

Furr said the county jail cannot house many more inmates sentenced to state prisons because it is already over capacity with or without an $18-a-day reimbursement.

n Contact reporter Tom MacCallum at 997-3111, ext. 15; e-mail tmaccallum@yourdailyjournal.com.