The legislature has grappled with the issue of jail funding for the past few years. Senate Bill 596 aims to modify the payment for housing and maintenance of inmates in the state’s correctional system.
The West Virginia Senate took up a bill Tuesday that would change how, and how much, counties pay for inmates they send to the state’s correctional system.
The legislature has grappled with the issue of jail funding for the past few years. Senate Bill 596 aims to modify the payment for housing and maintenance of inmates.
The amount counties and municipalities pay for every day of incarceration has been capped at $48.25 per inmate since 2018, but the State Budget Office stated earlier this year the per diem rate will increase to $54.48 in July.
The bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley, said SB596 will establish a pro-rata system to help counties pay the increased cost.
“We were able to figure out each county’s allotment of jailed nights, and then we were able to create a formula based on that pro rata share that each county will receive,” he said. “The first 80 percent of the nights that happened in the county would be billed at a 20 percent discount rate. From 80 percent to 100 percent, would be billed at the 100 percent of the current rate, and then if the county goes over their allotment of nights, there will be a 20 percent penalty for those nights.”
The rates for each county will be calculated by the commissioner of Corrections and Rehabilitation using census data and reviewed every 10 years. Barrett said through the 20 percent penalty, the bill would encourage counties to not only reduce their jail bill, but also develop alternative programs to help West Virginians.
“This way, we’re able to reduce the jail bills for counties, and also incentivize them to have really good day report centers, recovery resource centers, and utilize home confinement officers,” Barrett said. “We are incentivizing counties to not only reduce their jail bill, but to help people of West Virginia. If counties refuse to participate in those things, and they don’t make an effort to reduce their jail bill, in the amount of nights that folks are in jail in their county, then there will be a monetary penalty for that.”
The Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which has budgetary issues including a deferred maintenance cost of $200 million, has previously stated that the artificially low per diem payments do not cover the actual cost of incarceration.
In presenting the bill on the Senate floor, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, highlighted a provision in the bill that would put county commissioners personally on the hook for unpaid jail bills.
“It would codify the common and case law principle that public officials may be held personally liable for clearly delineated constitutional and statutory duties,” Tarr said. “This section of code clearly provides that counties bear the responsibility for paying for inmate housing and care. When a county fails to pay for inmate housing, this bill would codify that liability on both an official level and the personal level.”
The bill passed 22 to 11, with one senator absent, and now heads to the House of Delegates for consideration.
The cost of keeping inmates in regional jails in the state may go up, and counties and municipalities are concerned.
The cost of keeping inmates in regional jails in the state may go up, and counties and municipalities are concerned.
At a meeting of the Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority Tuesday evening, members heard results from a working group of statewide stakeholders about the daily rate for inmates.
The amount counties and municipalities pay has been capped at $48.25 per inmate since 2018, but is set to expire in July.
Committee staff counsel William Valentino said that amount falls short of actual cost to run the jails
“From my experience, working for corrections, they have to make up that money somewhere,” he said. “What I’m being told is that they are running out of revenue sources to make up the money that they are losing by the actual costs of per diem versus the $48.25.”
Valentino said the State Budget Office has already stated the per diem rate will increase to $54 in July, unless the legislature takes action in their upcoming session.
The working group of various officials from across the state met from May through September to discuss the per diem increase. The group included representatives from the governor’s office, the Supreme Court, the municipal league, mayors, sheriffs, attorneys and county commissioners.
“The things that we heard from the group over and over again, the common themes for what what was driving the pretrial detention, what was driving the increase in per diems, were either substance use disorders, mental health disorders, or essentially some co-occurring disorders of substance use and mental health,” Valentino said.
He said 80 percent of pretrial detainees, who make up the core of the regional jail system’s population, are arrested as a result of substance use or mental health disorder.
“It’s important for this committee to remember that the jails are not mental health facilities,” Valentino said.
He also highlighted the overcrowding in the state’s jail systems. He said the system in total is designed to hold 4,265 inmates but was currently housing 4,858 inmates, down from a high of 5,177 earlier in the year. Valentino said on average, pretrial detainees spend 271 days in regional jails.
The working group discussed and came up with many potential solutions, including cost sharing agreements between law enforcement organizations, reporting centers to replace expensive bonds in appropriate cases, and reducing pretrial delays by shifting juvenile abuse hearings to family court.
Berkeley County’s Community Service Roadside Litter Program, which launched three years ago, is the only litter program in the state that is full-time, runs five days a week and uses community service day-in-and-day-out. Most of the participants are people who have chosen community service instead of being incarcerated.
“Community service has a big part to do with it,” said Allen Hart, deputy marshal for the Berkeley County Courthouse. “If we wouldn’t have community service, we wouldn’t be able to do this job.”
Hart and his partner, fellow deputy marshal Noel Ebersole, spend their workday supporting the program participants by driving alongside them as they walk various roadways in the county — from back roads to the highway.
Participants toss full bags of litter onto Hart’s truck. Often they collect 40-85 bags of litter a day over a distance of just two to four miles.
Liz McCormick/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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Participants in the Berkeley County Community Service Roadside Litter Program are often individuals who have opted to do community service instead of serve time in jail.
Ebersole drives a small bus with a bathroom, drinking water and hand sanitizers ahead of the group. The participants get breaks throughout the day and are also fed lunch.
“What I’ll do is stay a couple hundred yards in front of them,” Ebersole said. “And we keep the people in between us, so we keep an eye on them and keep them safe.”
Litter waste in the U.S. increased during the coronavirus pandemic. Garbage workers had to pivot, halting some waste pickups, and people used more plastic bags, containers and disposable masks. According to the Keep America Beautiful 2020 National Litter Study, more than 200 million personal protective equipment (PPE) items were littered on U.S. roadways and waterways through early fall.
West Virginia has also experienced an increase in litter waste, but counties have been trying to tackle it.
Over its three years, the Berkeley County Community Service Roadside Litter Program has serviced more than 120 different roads within the county and amassed more than 476,000 pounds of litter.
The program also recently hit a major milestone. It’s serviced more than 1,000 miles of road since it began and collected more than 9,000 bags of litter.
Sandy Rogers, program manager for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan program, or REAP, provides West Virginia counties with support like grants and bags for litter cleanup.
Rogers said Berkeley County likely collects the most bags of any county. Berkeley is the fastest-growing county in the state and has seen a population boom in recent years.
“I think the more people you have in an area, the more litter you’ll see on the side of the road,” Rogers said. “These high traffic areas — you’re going to notice that more.”
From 2010 to 2019, Berkeley County has grown by 15,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s an increase of more than 14 percent.
This population growth and subsequent increase in litter is one of the reasons why the litter program in Berkeley County was started.
Liz McCormick/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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Allen Hart, deputy marshal for the Berkeley County Courthouse (left) and his partner, fellow deputy marshal Noel Ebersole (right), place signs along the roadways to let drivers know the litter crew is working.
“We took it upon ourselves to try to start a program to not only beautify Berkeley County but also to boost people’s morale, even the ones that are in community service,” said Berkeley County Council President Doug Copenhaver.
Berkeley’s roadside litter program is housed under the Berkeley County Council. “The whole intention of the whole program is never, ever beat somebody down, but to bring them up,” Copenhaver said.
Along with the council, the county’s judicial system plays a big role and provides workers for the program. Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Catie Wilkes-Delligatti said the program helps to hold offenders accountable while allowing them to remain home with their families.
“This is a way for them to repay their debt to our community,” Wilkes-Delligatti said. “It’s utilizing people who are available to us to make our community a better place to live, both by beautifying the streets but also by repaying a wrong that they’ve committed to our society.”
The program also saves the county money. Copenhaver said the county’s regional jail bill has gone down by about $1.5 million since 2016. While the litter program didn’t launch until 2018, Copenhaver thinks the program has made a positive impact on the county budget.
The Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority is another community partner in the litter program. At the end of every day, the bags that are loaded up onto Allen Hart’s truck are left at one of two drop-off points for the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority. Clint Hogbin, who has been the head of the solid waste authority for nearly 30 years, said the litter program is making a difference.
“It takes five or six different agencies to make this work,” Hogbin said. “And the solid waste authority was thrilled that when we all sat down at our very first meeting, and we went around, ‘What can you do? What can you do? What can you do?’ And next thing we knew, all the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place, literally very quickly.”
Hogbin said once the waste is dropped off at the solid waste authority, a regional waste agency called Apple Valley Waste will pick up all the bags for free. Some of the bags even go to Entsorga West Virginia — a new waste-to-energy facility that opened in the county a few years ago.
“Berkeley County’s investing in people,” said Mike Laing, Berkeley County’s chief court marshal and the head of the roadside litter program. “They’re not just putting them in jail. Everybody has a bad day, and they’re giving people alternatives to get their lives straightened out, and I think that’s really what Berkeley County is standing for.”
While Laing and other county officials say they are proud of the program, they also note they are disheartened by the continuous need for litter cleanup efforts.
“It’s been well-received by the public, but the sad part is there’s a need for it,” Laing said. “[But] anytime that you can have programs that better individuals, saves the taxpayers’ money … it pays dividends.”
West Virginia launches its first inpatient substance abuse treatment program in a regional jail today. The 28-bed unit will serve male inmates at the Southwestern Regional Jail in Logan County who are awaiting transfer to prison.
The Logan County program is the ninth treatment facility overseen by the state’s Division of Corrections, but the first at a regional jail.
The hope is that by opening a facility at a regional jail, substance abuse treatment can be begin earlier for eligible inmates who have a demonstrated history of drug use, but are not in a state level prison because there isn’t enough bed space.
The units are designed based on a therapeutic model that stresses structured, group-based therapy combined with individual participation and social interaction. Treatment lasts six- to 12-months.
The goal of the DOC treatment units is to help inmates break the cycle of addiction and improve their ability to live healthy and productive lives outside of a correctional facility, according to a Monday press release. Administrators also hope that rehabilitation will help inmates achieve parole earlier and ease prison overcrowding.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.
West Virginia’s Division of Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein told lawmakers the state is considering sending inmates to out of state facilities to curb overcrowding issues.
So far, two facilities are interested in taking inmates, one in Tennessee and one in Texas.
Rubenstein assured legislators on the Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jails and Correctional Facilities Monday while the state does have a Constitutional provision that bans sending inmates out of state involuntarily, it is within the law if they volunteer to be transferred.
Rubenstein said sending inmates who should be in prison, but are held in regional jails to these out of state facilities will give them earlier access to the rehabilitation programs they need.
“I’ve just always looked at it as a temporary solution which is again the belief being that if an individual can take advantage of programming and treatment right off the bat, see the parole board for the first time, have that met that they have a very good chance of being paroled,” he told lawmakers.
Out of state prisons that bid on the contract with West Virginia must be able to provide all of the same programming to inmates they would receive in state.
The bids will be opened November 5 for out of state locations looking to take in populations from West Virginia. From there, Rubenstein said the state will decide if it’s fiscally possible to move forward with the plan.
