FARMINGTON — Attorneys for Franklin County and the Maine Board of Corrections continue to wrangle over whether the county will pay the state an additional $100,000 this year.
The three commissioners met with the chairman and executive director of the state board Tuesday morning, and while it was a general meeting, county officials further probed the state corrections officials on the topic.
Franklin County Detention Center was reduced five years ago to a 72-hour holding facility as part of a statewide jail overhaul, and it pays about $600,000 a year in annual fees to compensate the Somerset County Jail, where its inmates are held when they stay longer than three days.
The attorneys for Franklin County and the board are debating whether the county is required this year to pay an extra $100,000 — $50,000 now and $50,000 in the spring — to be distributed by the state corrections board to offset a $1.2 million statewide shortfall.
“It’s at the attorneys’ level now,” said Ryan Thornell, executive director of the Board of Corrections.
In correspondence with the county, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Black, who represents the board, wrote that the board decided to raise Franklin County’s payment this fiscal year from $630,576 to $730,576 after noting the county had been running at an annual surplus of more than $100,000 a year.
“Faced once again with a projected budget deficit for (fiscal year) 2015, the board sought fair and equitable ways to address this looming problem,” Black wrote.
Franklin County commissioners consulted with their attorney, Frank Underkuffler, and with the county auditor before voting earlier this year to withhold $50,000 from a scheduled payment. County and jail officials said they are being asked to prop up the state and have been tied unfairly to statewide financial problems.
Black wrote that from fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2013, Franklin County had an annual surplus of $109,957 to $135,011. The extra money, Black said, is a result of the jail being given extra money in the budget when it should have had less revenue after it was reduced to a 72-hour holding facility.
Sen. Tom Saviello, who sat in on the meeting, said he would understand if the state corrections board were able to change its invoicing for next year and collected the $100,000 more in boarder fees in 2015, but he said collecting the additional funding this year was changing the rules without giving notice of a procedural change.
County Clerk Julie Magoon said the fees were disproportional, adding that she didn’t understand why the county will be charged more in boarder revenue when the other 72-hour holding facilities — the Waldo and Oxford county jails — were not being charged more.
Black said the other two counties “face situations substantially different” from Franklin County’s and a comparison would be “apples to oranges.”
He said Oxford County has twice the average daily inmate population as Franklin County, and Waldo County is unique in that it operates as a 72-hour holding facility and a re-entry facility.
In the spring, the Legislature again overhauled the state jail system, and state jail officials say they hope that in the next two-year budget cycle, the state will fund the jail system fully for the first time.
Commissioner Gary McGrane criticized the lack of money for the jails and likened it to other unfunded state obligations, such as the shortfalls in state matches in school funding.
Thornell said the only chance the jail system has to secure additional funding before the next state budget cycle would be through supplemental funding from the Legislature, which he said he has requested.
McGrane asked how the Franklin County officials can become involved in a larger role in the system, beyond housing prisoners for 72 hours.
Thornell, executive director of the Board of Corrections, said the new legislation that overhauled the state jail system is an opportunity for the county officials to shape a system into one they want to participate in and that reduces the inmate re-offense rate.
“We’ve been given a shell of legislation. … It becomes what it’s made,” Thornell said.
Thornell said corrections subcommittees now are shaping policies for programs, finance and standardization, and he urged Franklin County officials to become involved in the process.
“I think your role could be much more than just writing a check twice a year,” he said.
Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252
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