PARIS — A looming mandate from the Legislature returning some local control of the county jail has officials scrambling to iron out a plan to facilitate and fund a system that hasn’t been in place for seven years.

Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant told county commissioners Tuesday morning he’s not sure where an additional $1.1 million needed to upgrade the Oxford County Jail from a 72-hour holding facility to a full-time jail will come from. 

Driving the costs, Gallant said, will be the need to hire nine additional jail employees, overseeing inmates’ medical requirements and implementing a dietary menu that conforms with the state’s nutritional standards. For example, Gallant said new medical costs would run an estimate $75,000 annually; prescription medications, $35,000. 

However, under LD 186 — a bill passed by lawmakers but which remains tied up in a dispute awaiting decision by the state’s highest court — Gallant said there’s insufficient funding for the transition. 

The bill would dismantle Maine’s consolidated jail system created in 2008 and partially return control to the counties. To cover the costs, it provides approximately $12 million in state funding for jails and allows counties to raise the portion of taxes going to the jail by up to 3 percent. 

Gallant said it would take $18 million to fund the system.

Oxford County Commissioner David Duguay called the $6 million difference a “tax shift” pushed onto counties by the state. 

The bill leaves the county the option to transition to full-time and set a $36,000 limit on how much more it can ask of taxpayers to get there. 

As that cap is unlikely to cover current spending and the state contribution hasn’t been calculated, the effect, according to Oxford County Administrator Scott Cole, may be a hybrid arrangement where only a small portion of the prison population is kept in the county around the clock.

“It’s just mind boggling,” Oxford County Commissioner Steve Merrill said. “I don’t know where we are. Day to day, it’s ‘wait and see.'”

Any major overhaul would require repeated inspections to conform with standards from the Department of Corrections — a process that could take six to eight months — according Jail Administrator Capt. Ed Quinn. 

Quinn said the uncertainty over whether the legislation would pass had him working on several different budget projections simultaneously. 

Under the current system, Oxford County inmates who are unable to meet or are denied bail are transported to other counties’ jails while awaiting their court dates. As a trade-off, the county pays $187,000 annually to the now-defunct Maine Board of Corrections, which then disperses funds to 12 other jails, some of which house the majority of Oxford County’s long-term inmates, like Cumberland County.

To fund the jail, the county’s municipalities are asked to foot operational costs to the tune of $1.34 million, raised in the form of property taxes, a figure capped since 2008, despite rising costs. 

“What we ended up with was completely inadequate for what the jails need to run well,” executive director of the Maine County Commissioners Association Rosemary Kulow said. 

The change would put Oxford County on the hook for the medical costs associated with inmates’ pre-existing health conditions, prescription drug purchases and implement a nutritional meal plan. In the past, this has meant hiring cooks; however, Gallant said they would look to bolster an arrangement purchasing meals from a local restaurant to keep costs down. 

Rather than house every prisoner, Oxford will keep a dozen or so defendants charged with the most severe offenses and negotiate an prisoner exchange rate for most of the remainder with Cumberland County, which currently houses around 40 Oxford County inmates. 

Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce said the change would leave him with additional costs without the funding to cover them, requiring him to ask for a portion of the $108-per-prisoner price tag receiving jails may charge.

While still working out the details, Joyce said his request would be less than the limit. 

“If I never took a new inmate, I’d still have to find cuts,”  Joyce said. “We’re still not seeing enough money from the state.”

Held in limbo until the high court’s decision, Cole mused about holding special meetings to hammer out a deal sooner rather than later.

“Our piece of the pie is tied to Cumberland County more than ever,” he said.

ccrosby@sunmediagroup.net 

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