Sheriff proposes raising per diem inmate holding rates from $75 to $220

Lorain County Sheriff Jack Hall is asking county commissioners to consider nearly tripling the per day rate his office can charge municipal police departments for holding their arrestees. If Hall's proposal is approved by commissioners, the per day rate would rise from $75 to $220 per inmate. That cost would be borne by municipalities — cities and villages — whose police departments arrest people and hand them over to the custody of the sheriff. "We have been missing out on quite a bit of revenue that should be charged to the municipatlies who are incarcerating their inmates in our jail," Hall told commissioners on Friday. "Bottom line, we just can't bear this expense on my budget anymore." Commissioners said the issue would be on their Oct. 20 agenda. If the new day rate is approved, they said they expected it would be reviewed annually with 90 days notice to the municipalities that pay it. Municipal governments would pay for as long as the inmates their police agencies arrested were being held on local charges. The sheriff would start to bear the cost following a felony indictment, for example, Hall said. Hall said he has already had preliminary discussions about the issue with several police departments, and would bring up the issue at the next meeting of the Lorain County Chiefs' Law Enforcement Association. Commissioners in 2003, including Moore in his first term, passed a resolution setting the daily rate for costs at $75. It wasn't enough even then and isn't enough now as the actual cost of holding an inmate per day in 2003 was $84, Hall said. The increase wouldn't be a windfall, raising only an estimated $400,000 to $500,000 per year, Hall said. That would still go a little ways toward making sure "that we accommodate for covering our expenses in the jail," he said. "The county, the general fund, and my budget have been footing the bill for this for way too long and I'm not sure why this wasn't brought up earlier," he said. "We are paying a lot out in order to care for the inmates who are coming into the Lorain County Jail." The county sheriff is responsible for running the county jail under Ohio law. That also includes any medical, mental health, transportation and other expenses incurred by inmates in the sheriff's custody. Hall said about 60 percent of inmates in his custody require mental health care, and he has mental health professionals as well as medical professionals on staff. It's still not enough in the aging facility on Murray Ridge Road in Elyria, where Hall said he has space for nine female inmates who require enhanced mental health care. There are 19 such women in his custody, Hall said, so some of them are being housed in Cuyahoga County Jail at a daily rate of $234 per inmate being paid by Lorain County taxpayers. Ohio law also says the sheriff can't profit from daily incarceration rates and can only charge enough to cover actual costs, Hall said. Hall said only Avon, Avon Lake, Amherst and North Ridgeville have their own municipal jails, but state law says inmates in those facilities can only be held there up to 12 hours at a time. Lorain got rid of its municipal jail and Elyria built one but later closed it, and it is not up to date with current state jail standards, Hall said. Commissioners on Friday also approved a $500,000 transfer from the county general fund to cover jail operations. That was the result of an estimated increase in sales tax revenue, Moore and county Fiscal Director KC Saunders said. Jail operations are funded by a 0.25 percent sales tax passed in 1994. That tax, which typically raises between $13 million and $14 million per year, is not enough to pay for the nearly $20 million annual cost of jail operations, Hall and Saunders said. Estimated revenue for the jail operations tax had been $14.2 million but it will be closer to $15 million "which is obviously a big help," Saunders said. The $500,000 transfer is still within the $7 million budgeted for jail operations out of the county general fund, he said. Hall's budget, which at one point was expected to have a $4 million shortfall by the end of the year, may be OK due to a bump in tax revenue and some additional cuts, officials said. "It's gonna be OK but it's gonna be tight," Moore said. Contact Dave O'Brien at 440-329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.