FARMINGTON — Franklin County jail inmates are in for a ride.

People arrested in towns such as Wilton, Carrabassett Valley and Rangeley have traditionally been booked and held at the Somerset County Jail in Madison, about 30 minutes from Farmington.

That ended Tuesday.

Somerset County shut down a section of its new facility, citing low state reimbursements for the housing of out-of-county inmates. So Franklin County, which no longer has a jail, began sending its inmates to the next available facility — in Wiscasset, two hours away.

“Today will be our maiden voyage,” Franklin County Sheriff Dennis Pike said Tuesday. County corrections officers drove three inmates to Two Bridges Regional Jail. The trip was expected to take most of the day.

And Wednesday, inmates could be sent to a jail even farther away, said Mark Westrum, chairman of the Maine Board of Corrections and Two Bridges’ administrator.

“If the system has beds somewhere, that’s where they’ll be going,” Westrum said.

The situation was created by the so-called, “one Maine, one system” jail network formed in 2008. That year, the state froze county spending on jails and worked to coordinate available beds. As part of the transition, the state remade the jails in Franklin and Oxford counties as less-expensive 72-hour holding facilities. Oxford County’s inmates were sent to the Androscoggin County Jail, which became a pretrial center. Franklin County’s inmates went to Somerset.

At the time of the consolidation, the state promised to meet future budget needs. However, state funding is dropping. Phone calls Tuesday to Maine Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte were not returned.

Westrum warned that changes have to be made or the whole system will fail.

“We can’t continue to exist without proper funding,” he said. “That’s all there is to it. The Board of Corrections either needs some teeth and needs to be able to make some tough decisions or it probably needs to go away.”

The board is scheduled to meet next week and will look at the situation.

Somerset County Sheriff Barry Delong said he sympathizes with Franklin County’s predicament, but he is worried about expenses.

“The state was paying me $22.50 a day to house people not from the county, and I’m paying $270 to house my own people,” he said. “I found that not very acceptable. I closed down a (jail) pod.”

“(Somerset County) taxpayers are paying the bond on this brand-new jail,” Delong said. “The taxpayers are tired of getting screwed in this county.”

Word of the closure reached Franklin County on Thursday. On Tuesday, the 72-hour facility in Farmington had nine inmates, many nearing the end of the state-imposed three-day limit.

“(The system) is going to scatter Franklin County inmates across the state and displace them from their families,” said Doug Blauvelt, who runs the Franklin County Detention Center.

He spent part of Tuesday calling the jails and searching for space. Most said they were full.

Sheriff Pike was worried about the expense Franklin County will accrue by driving its inmates around to other jails.

“It is a hardship for us,” he said. He wishes he had his jail back. “I’ve honestly never recovered.”

The state’s system was ill-conceived, he said.

“Unfortunately, it appears that intelligence is not one of the greatest virtues to come out of Augusta these days,” Pike said.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

Staff Writer Donna Perry contributed to this report.

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