The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The new county jail in Lewis opened in 2007 and was financed with a 30-year bond, with annual payments of $1.5 million. The 120-bed facility replaced the old one in Elizabethtown, which only had 20 beds and was built in 1868. The number of Essex County inmates has fluctuated between about 20 and 40 over the past few years, meaning the county often had to pay to board inmates elsewhere before the new jail opened.

Hommes, who has been sheriff for 12 years, is running for re-election as a Republican and Conservative against independent challengers Robert Kirby and Michael "Ike" Tyler. The jail has been an issue in the campaign. Tyler has said the staff isn't trained to deal with the federal inmates, and Kirby has said he thinks the jail is too big, leading to extra costs.

The federal government pays the county $98 per day to board an inmate; Hommes said it costs about $8 per day to provide food, clothing and a bed for a prisoner.

The county budgeted $4.2 million for the jail for 2009, including the bond payment, said county Manager Dan Palmer. This doesn't take the revenue from the prisoners into account.

Kirby said Tuesday afternoon that he doesn't think the $98 per boarded prisoner covers added expenses such as the guards and other staff needed to run a facility certified for 120 inmates.

"You must provide certain services regardless of whether the cells are full or not," Kirby said.

"There are still a lot of costs associated with operating that jail," said Moriah Supervisor Tom Scozzafava, who is on the Public Safety Committee.

Hommes said the county is also no longer spending money to board its inmates elsewhere, as it did before the new jail opened. The county spent more than $700,000 to board inmates in 2006 and more than $500,000 in 2007, Hommes said.

Tyler said Wednesday morning that, while boarding inmates makes sense now that the 120-bed jail has been built, he thinks his background as a corrections officer will help him train the jail's guards to deal with the federal inmates. Tyler also wondered if the new jail was a net gain or loss.

"Maybe (the jail) brought in $1 million, but we had to hire more officers," Tyler said. "It costs a lot more to house more inmates. I've never seen any studies done on the direct correlation on money being made and money being spent out."

Kirby also said the lack of a guarantee from the federal government that it will rent a fixed number of beds worried him, as the county could lose revenue if other jails start to accept more boarders and the federal government turns to them. Kirby said the number of correctional personnel, currently 58, could be reduced to 38 if the jail was only certified for 60 prisoners.

Hommes said the jail's cost could only be driven down significantly if there were fewer than 30 inmates, in which case they could all be held in one housing unit and the other two, both currently in operation, could be shut down.

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Stimulus grant

The sheriff's department has also been awarded $188,080 in stimulus money, Hommes said, to be spent over a two-year period. The money will be used to pay the salary, benefits and retirement contributions of a sheriff's deputy for two years, for a vehicle, for portable radios and for overtime to do narcotics investigations, Hommes said.

"The position is a narcotics position," Hommes said. "We have to keep that in mind, but if there is a slack period, yes, they will be doing other duties."
http://adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/509142.html