By RONNIE ELLIS
FRANKFORT — Three years have passed since state Auditor Crit Luallen said, “Kentucky’s taxpayers are paying too much for county jails.” It’s been a year since lawmakers in Frankfort and Gov. Steve Beshear said it’s time to get serious about corralling runaway prison and jail costs.
Not much has changed.
Jails run a cumulative operating deficit of $130 million. The state corrections budget approaches $450 million. And attempts in last year’s state budget to reduce costs by allowing state felons to receive credit toward completion of their sentences of previously served parole, education and good behavior are tied up in courts. The Kentucky County Judge/Executives Associa-tion has sued for more funding.
But as Rep. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, says: “Where’s the money going to come from?”
Webb is sympathetic; she’s one of the lawmakers who have tried to find ways to reduce costs by seeking alternative sentencing, allowing release after calculating parole credits, and supporting treatment programs for substance abusers. But she isn’t optimistic the state can help the counties with their jail costs during a recession and state budget crisis.
Vince Lang, executive director of judges’ association, asks the same question from the opposite perspective. He points out that when the state allows felons to be released with credit for previous parole, a disproportionate number come from jails, prisoners the state pays counties to house.
“Those people were our paying customers,” Lang said. Continuing to release such prisoners from jails “could drive up county jails’ deficits.”
Sen. Bob Stivers, R-Manchester, has introduced two bills to help the counties. One would require medical providers serving county jail inmates to charge the Medicaid rate and would not allow them to refuse to serve such prisoners if they are Medicaid approved providers.
Lang said on average counties are paying a premium of 18 percent over the Medicaid rate to providers and he says most of those prisoners would qualify for Medicaid if they weren’t in jail.
“If the prisoner were out on the street and indigent, (the medical providers) would only get the Medicaid rate,” Lang said. “Why should counties have to pay a premium?”
That bill has support in both chambers of the legislature. But a companion bill to address major cost concerns by counties, isn’t a sure bet. The bill would gradually pay counties for time state inmates are housed in county jails prior to sentencing – the issue over which the counties have sued the state. And it would almost double the amount of money the state began paying counties in the 1980s for general operations.
The Legislative Research Commission estimates the additional cost to the state of the bill’s provisions would be about $16 million in the first year and $28 million in the second. Because the bill ties state payments to the counties to the consumer price index, those amounts would likely grow over time. That’s what troubles Webb and House Judiciary Chairman John Tilley, D-Hopkinsville.
“I think it’s safe to say the fiscal impact indicates its prospects are less than certain,” Tilley said. “But I do want to continue that discussion because I understand the counties’ problems with costs.”
Deputy Secretary of Justice Charles Geveden cited the counties’ lawsuit over credit for time served in not commenting on Stivers’ bill.
That bill would also require counties to secure state approval before building new jails and require them to use state-approved plans and build them to a minimum size – in effect, a certificate of need process. Lang and the judges’ association support both bills enthusiastically.
Tilley said a bill he’s sponsoring to codify the parole credit provisions to allow earlier release of qualifying inmates needs some more work – mostly, he said, on technical details and on concern by some in the Republican Senate the provision not apply to violent offenders.
When Pulaski Commonwealth Attorney Eddy Mont-gomery and state Attorney General Jack Conway sued to stop implantation of the parole provisions in last year’s budget, some in the Republican Senate claimed they never intended the provision to apply to violent offenders. (There are two conflicting court rulings on the program which is likely to be resolved ultimately in the state Supreme Court.)
Webb said she believes the Department of Corrections properly ap-plied the provisions. And if the state doesn’t do something about its growing corrections costs, it’ll have consequences for the entire state budget.
She said if lawmakers don’t make the program permanent beyond the two-year budget period, “we’re going to have a black abyss” in the state budget.
Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.
