PARIS — Under threat of having approximately 29 inmates returned to Oxford County Jail next week, Oxford County commissioners voted Tuesday to pay approximately $138,000 to the Cumberland County Jail to continue housing them.

The decision is a temporary fix to a long-term housing problem, according to Oxford County Jail Administrator Capt. Edward Quinn.

County Administrator Scott Cole said the jail doesn’t have room for all its inmates. Since the jail was built in 1979, the county has worked with Cumberland County to handle the overflow.

“The ideal capacity of the jail is 21, the practical capacity is 27 and the ultimate capacity is 48. The number of inmates at any time can be 60 or 70,” Cole said.

Twenty-nine Oxford County inmates were due to return to the Paris jail on Friday, Oct. 9.

In addition to not having the space to house all county inmates, Cole said the jail also faces the issue of not having the resources for housing longer-term prisoners.

There are 15 county jails in Maine. Three smaller ones, Oxford included, are classified as 72-hour facilities and can only house an inmate for 72 hours. After that time, they must be taken to another jail that can provide for food, clothing, medical and supervisory needs.  

“We were termed a sending jail, the other 12 were labeled receiving jails. We were prohibited from holding inmates for longer than 72 hours, and in return we were able to shed certain costs,” Cole said.

The total annual operating cost for all 15 jails is approximately $80 million, $62 million of which is raised by the counties via taxation, and $18 million of which used to come from the state. However, recent legislation reduced the state’s portion to $12 million, but kept the county’s cap at $62 million, leaving a $6 million deficit.

The deficit can only be made up one of a few ways: cutting expenses; raising taxes, which legally counties can’t do; closing jails and having local police departments transport prisoners to jails that have space.

“It’s a difficult issue,” Cole said. “Jails, in terms of public policy, are not crowd-pleasers. People don’t like paying taxes to support prisons and jails.”

Agreements, like Oxford’s with Cumberland, attempt to make up the deficit in funding by charging fees that barely cover their costs associated with feeding, transporting, housing and providing medical care for the inmates.

Cumberland County Jail charges $50 per day per inmate, a reasonable price, according to Cole, but when the money is not there to begin with, counties like Oxford find themselves in a financial bind.

Something has got to give, though, and soon, Cole said.

Cole said Oxford County Jail operates at a loss each year. Adding the payment to the Cumberland County Jail increases the deficit. The only recourse, according to Cole, is to tap into the reserve fund, but without a way to replenish that reserve, then that, too, will eventually run out.

“Our current cost of running our jail is somewhere in the $1.4 to $1.5 million range, and then there’s the inmate cost, which can conceivably be as high as $552,000,” he said. “We’re probably running on an annual basis at about a $600,000 or $700,000 deficit. We did receive $297,000 in state aid. But we’re still in the half-million dollar deficit position. We can basically draw down existing reserves, and that will last for about a year or so. We’re not in a sustainable condition right now financially,” he said. “This saga is playing out across the state.”

Tapping into the reserves is what commissioners decided to do Tuesday. It was either that, or they would be forced to take back the 29 or so inmates, according to an email the commissioners received from Cumberland County Manager Peter Crichton.

“Because we need to make certain decisions, please note that effective next Monday, Oxford County is on notice that we will be sending your inmates back unless we can complete an agreement by 12 noon on Oct. 9,” Crichton wrote in the Sept. 25 email to Cole.

“We’re between a rock and a hard place,” Cole told commissioners Tuesday. “There’s no money budgeted for this payment that’s pending. Now you’re faced with a situation where you have to expend money from the fund balance that hasn’t been budgeted or we’re going to have 29 inmates delivered up here on or about Oct. 9.”

“We knew this day was coming,” Chairman Steven Merrill said. “I kind of thought we resolved ourselves that we were going to do this anyway.”

Another quarterly payment for Cumberland County Jail will come due by the end of October for nearly the same amount, and the commissioners may have little choice but to deplete the reserves even further.

Oxford County may have dodged a bullet for the short term, but long term questions remain, like where would the prisoners go if Cumberland County Jail ultimately returns them to Oxford. Releasing them could be detrimental to public safety, and other jails, like Androscoggin County’s in Auburn, are already operating at or above capacity.

“There is no place for (the inmates),” Quinn said. “I won’t even open the doors. I can’t take on that liability. We have no medical, we have no resources. (Cumberland County) has been our saving grace,” he said.

The commissioners are hoping to organize a delegation representing all counties to go before the Legislature in January to try and convince officials they need more money or come up with another solution. In the meantime, Oxford County will request reimbursement from the state for the unbudgeted expenditure.

“We’re holding these prisoners for breaking state laws, and the state did this,” Commissioner David Duguay said. “I guess that leaves a sour taste in our mouth. I hope there’s some recourse for any money we have to pay Cumberland. We’re backed into a corner here.”

Merrill predicted an uphill battle for a solution. “Lawyers and legislators are going to be involved in this before it’s done.” 

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