AUGUSTA — A bill that would return a full-service jail to Franklin County could get a second life, even though lawmakers gave the measure an 11-0 thumbs-down vote Monday.

The “ought not to pass” vote was a misstep, said Sen. Tom Saviello, R-Wilton, the bill’s author. The Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee should have tabled it, he said.

The bill, LD 238, authorized Franklin County to run a full-service jail again, instead of the 72-hour holding facility it currently operates.

County jails were taken over by the state in July 2009, and the Farmington detention center was switched from a full-time jail to a holding facility.

The county still raises about $1.6 million a year to operate the facility, even though the cost for the state to operate it was only $1.1 million in 2012.

It was unclear Tuesday what the state did with the remaining $500,000 and attempts to clarify that were not immediately successful.

After the vote, the committee’s Senate co-chairman, Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, recessed the committee. Gerzofsky, who had stepped out to another meeting, was absent for the vote but said he had intended to place the jail bill back on the table in hopes of working out a compromise.

Gerzofsky on Tuesday reiterated that Monday’s vote was the result of a miscommunication and he intended to resolve the issue. 

Saviello said the bill had not left the committee and Gerzofsky would move to reconsider the vote on it and then seek to have it tabled at an upcoming meeting.  

“I understand what transpired and I take Stan at his word,” Saviello said. “He will work this out.”

Saviello said there’s new hope for the measure following a decision Monday by Somerset County, which said it could take no new prisoners from other counties in Maine.  

Somerset County has been accepting Franklin County prisoners and currently houses 31 of them but it backed away from that deal — the second time in a year — after a quarterly payment from the Maine Department of Corrections was withheld.

The department has said it is withholding the payment while it seeks to resolve legal questions about Somerset County’s arrangement to house an estimated 40 federal inmates at a rate of $90 a day.  

About $280,000 is owed Somerset from the past quarter. Sheriff Barry DeLong said he stopped taking inmates from other counties on March 26. DeLong said he intends to use the revenue from the federal funds to pay down bonds on the county jail and has no intention of allowing Somerset County taxpayers to foot the bill for other counties’ inmates. He said earlier this week that the 31 Franklin County inmates at his jail could remain there for now.

Meanwhile, both counties are in negotiations with the Maine Board of Corrections. Franklin County hopes it will get permission to begin operating a full-service jail, but to do so it would have to add at least one full-time staff person, Saviello said.

He said the recent move by Somerset County likely would help Franklin County in its bid for full jail status. In the interim, Franklin County will meet with the Board of Corrections to review what it must do, but county officials are scrambling to make sure they have a place to house potential prisoners until then.

Even if Saviello’s bill were to pass into law, it wouldn’t become effective until 90 days after the Legislature adjourns, usually sometime in June. But both he and Gerzofsky mentioned Tuesday a bill could move forward under an emergency preamble and with two-thirds support in the Legislature it would become law as soon as it is signed by Gov. Paul LePage, or 10 days after it passes, without a signature.

“Somerset County has sent a clear signal for the second time now and I believe both the Board of Corrections and the Legislature are paying attention at this point,” Saviello said late Tuesday. “This could all break out the way we want, but it’s going to be painful until we get there.”

It was unclear when the committee might take up the bill for reconsideration.

sthistle@sunjournal.com

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