State prisoners crowd area jails - and local taxpayers foot part of bill

The Blue Ridge Regional Jail Authority currently houses more than 200 inmates who are supposed to be in a state prison.

Jails in Amherst and Appomattox counties also routinely house more than their share of convicted felons, many waiting months for transfer by the state Department of Corrections.

Regional jail officials say the failure to pick up state prisoners in a timely manner has not only led to overcrowding and strained budgets.

It’s also left a portion of the tab to house the prisoners in the hands of local taxpayers.

Though state law calls for transferring convicted felons to a state prison within 90 days of sentencing, officials at local jails and the DOC concede the requirement is rarely enforced. As of Feb. 19, approximately 4,327 state prisoners were awaiting removal in jails throughout Virginia, according to DOC figures. That’s an increase of about 57 percent from the same date in 2009.

Regional jail officials said their complaints to the DOC about the growing number of state prisoners in their jails have gone unheeded. “For the most part, it’s been a deaf ear,” said Amherst County Sheriff Jimmy Ayers.

Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor, responding by e-mail to written questions from The News & Advance, said that the DOC tries to work with local jails “within the limits placed on us by the budget situation.” He said budget reductions closed eight state facilities in the past year, reducing bed space by about 2,600.

While jail officials at the local level have been responsible for inmates awaiting transfer to a state prison for years, the issue now has become more urgent, they say, for two key reasons: the number of out-of-compliance prisoners has spiked, and budget cutbacks from the state have made the cost of supporting these inmates more difficult.

At the same time, local jail officials question a $20 million deal announced in December that this year will bring 1,000 inmates from Pennsylvania to Green Rock Correctional Center.

The DOC, facing budget issues of its own, says that the contract is necessary because it will generate much-needed revenue that will help the department keep more prisons open and avoid layoffs.

Traylor said that the deal will speed up rather than slow down the transfer of state prisoners from local jails.

“Without the revenue, those beds wouldn’t be available to anyone,” Traylor said in an e-mail. “In fact, we will gain 100 beds for Virginia inmates (because of the contract).”

But those who run jails in the Lynchburg area aren’t so sure.

At the Blue Ridge Regional Jail Authority, which currently has about 1,000 inmates but has a capacity of 760, 20 percent of the beds are filled with prisoners awaiting state transfer. One inmate has been waiting since June 2008.

“Of course it affects me,” said authority superintendent Elton Blackstock of the Pennsylvania deal. “It makes prison beds unavailable and backs up state inmates even more.”

Blackstock — who presides over jails in Lynchburg and Bedford cities and Halifax, Bedford and Campbell counties — isn’t the first jail official to be rankled by state contracts that bring in out-of-state inmates.

Two Virginia Beach sheriffs have sued the DOC director, both questioning the legality of the DOC taking in felons from other states while not providing state beds for some of its own prisoners.

The first suit, filed in 1995, resulted in the DOC removing its prisoners from Virginia Beach Jail to state facilities.

In the second suit, filed in 2008, the Virginia Beach Circuit Court ruled against former Virginia Beach Sheriff Paul Lanteigne, citing a clause in the 2007 state Appropriations Act that gives the director of DOC the discretion to decide when prisoners are removed.

Lanteigne, now retired, said the clause gives jail officials little recourse under the law.

“Part of the problem with the DOC is that they receive no penalty,” he said. “They have no incentive to fulfill their obligations.”

Jail officials say that the problem with state felons doesn’t stop at bed space.

Blackstock and others say they receive inadequate compensation from the state to house convicted prisoners.

While the state currently pays local jails $14 per day for each inmate awaiting transfer, that does not cover the costs to house the prisoner, even when additional money jails receive to pay staff salaries, building costs and other expenditures are factored in, local jail officials say.

“That merely scratches the surface,” said Ayers.

Amherst County Jail has an operating capacity of 50 but currently houses 69 inmates. Seven of these inmates are out-of-compliance.

Ayers said if the state’s budget projections come to pass, he will have no choice but to request that the county make up the deficit. The county currently pays about 40 percent of the jail’s budget, said Assistant County Administrator David Proffitt.

Ayers also said that, unlike the DOC, local jails can’t turn people away because of budget problems.

“If people are arrested, we have to take them, “ he said. “We have no choice.”

At the regional jail authority, the operating cost per inmate is about $53 per day. Of that, Blackstock estimates that the state contributes about $40 per day for state-responsible inmates — $26 per inmate per day in salaries, plus the $14 per diem. Localities make up the rest, about $13 per prisoner, or more than $2,800 per day for the 213 prisoners currently awaiting transfer to a state prison.

The expense likely is more for local jails with higher operating costs, Blackstock said. The state compensation board estimated that daily operating costs per inmate for the jails in Amherst and Appomattox in 2008-09 were $63 and $92, respectively.

The extra costs passed down to the localities are expected to increase in the next budget year, jail officials say.

Blackstock said the state compensation board has proposed substantial cuts both in correction officers’ salaries and per diem rates for inmates in local jails for the remainder of the current budget year, as well as in 2011-12.

If the cuts come through, he said the board has projected the per diem rate for out-of-compliance prisoners will decrease from $14 to $12 in 2011-12. Staff salaries would be cut by 16 percent.

With 11 positions already left unfilled and state standards to comply with, Blackstock said that his hands are tied when it comes to how much he can cut out of his current $23 million operating budget. He already has pared his food costs to about $3.65 per day per inmate.

Rising utility costs have compounded the problem, he said. His operational expenses rose by 11 percent between 2006 and 2008, according to state compensation board figures.

“I have very few areas that would allow me further cuts,” Blackstock said. “And the reality is that anything I cannot make up for will be passed to the localities.”

Ayers, too, said he feels bound by state standards when deciding how much he can cut from the county jail’s budget, currently at about $2 million.

“Food and medical are the major expenses we have,” Ayers said. “We can’t change state standards.”

Rebecca Pitsenbarger, the nurse for the county jail, said one prisoner awaiting transfer to a state prison had nearly $3,300 in medication costs in December alone.

She added that it was the principle, rather than the costs, that is at issue.

“It matters not whether inmates are costing us medically,” she wrote in a letter about the problem to the Amherst County Board of Supervisors. “What matters is that DOC inmates belong in the DOC system.”

Supervisor Chairman Chris Adams said the state needs to take more responsibility for the prisoners in its system.

“I don’t care how someone tries to justify this process,” he said. “This is another unfunded mandate being passed down to the locality. The fact is, at the state level, we are not getting any support.”

Central Virginia Regional Jail Superintendent Floyd Aylor said the General Assembly needs to address the issue. His jail, which encompasses Orange and four other counties, also has experienced backup from state prisoners, he said.

“It seems remarkable to me that state agencies can be above the law,” Aylor said. “We don’t have a problem with the agency itself. We have a problem with the law.”

Traylor said that several jails throughout the state actually run below capacity and voluntarily hold DOC inmates under agreement.

“The current economic downturn has affected all of us and we continue to look for solutions that will benefit both the DOC and local and regional jails,” Traylor said in the e-mail.

“There are no easy answers.”