LITTLE ROCK — The mayors of Little Rock, North Little Rock, Jacksonville, Sherwood and Maumelle have proposed paying a total of $544,053 to the county to house 80 additional prisoners at the county jail next year. The money is 15 percent less than Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines had requested.
Villines had wanted the cities to pay $640,000, which he said was two-thirds of the cost of guarding and housing the additional prisoners; and the county, which built the new space, would pay $320,000. But in a letter to Villines, the mayors cited the jail’s history of budget surpluses and proposed reducing their contributions by 15 percent to reflect the actual cost of running the jail in 2011 rather than what had been budgeted.
“Inasmuch as the county typically uses budget surpluses for various other county priorities, it is the feeling of the mayors that we should be contributing to the actual expenditure costs of the jail, not the budgeted amount,” the mayors said in their letter dated Monday and delivered late Monday afternoon to Villines, Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay and members of the Pulaski County Quorum Court.
Villines welcomed the news, but said he doesn’t understand the mayors’ logic.
“I’m glad they’re really trying to figure out a way to help,” he said Tuesday. “I’m not sure I follow their reasoning. You can’t budget based on actual costs. You have to show a balanced budget when you adopt it.”
The new part of the jail has capacity for 240 prisoners, but county officials want to open the space in phases — 80 at a time. Under previous agreements, the county pays a third of the cost to operate the additional capacity, which includes salaries, food and medical costs, while the five cities kick in the other two-thirds, with Little Rock and North Little Rock covering most of that.
The additional money is on top of ijail costs that the cities already are shouldering. In Little Rock’s case, that is about $1.4 million.
Adding space for 80 prisoners would increase the official jail capacity to 1,210 from the 1,130 it has now. The jail held 1,158 prisoners as of Tuesday morning, said Lt. Carl Minden, a sheriff’s office spokesman.
The annual cost of the additional 80 prisoners — at least $936,186 — is included in the county’s proposed 2013 jail budget of $20.9 million, up from the $20 million budgeted for the current year.
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola, North Little Rock Mayor Pat Hays, Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman, Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher and Maumelle Mayor Mike Watson met on Nov. 9 to hammer out the agreement, according to the letter.
The mayors used a threestep formula to figure their jurisdictions’ shares of paying for the jail to house more prisoners. The cities:
Allocated per city $1 per person, using 2010 Census population figures. That amounted to $333,760, with Little Rock apportioned the most — $193,524 — and Cammack Village the least — $768.
Allocated $17.88 per prisoner arrested in each jurisdiction annually, figured on the basis of a July 10 memorandum from Jail Chief Randy Morgan. The total amounted to $306,302.28. Little Rock police had the most arrests, 7,815 from July 1, 2011, to June 30, according to Morgan, and would pay $139,732.20. By contrast, Maumelle had the least number of arrests with 196 and would pay $3,504.48. Cammack Village arrests weren’t listed.
Together, both of those allocations equal about $640,000, the amount the county judge had asked the cities to pay.
But the third step in the formula called for a 15 percent reduction in the total amount the cities would pay based on the actual expense of running the jail last year — $19,709,405 — rather than what was budgeted for the jail that year — $23,281,190.
“Consequently, we have reduced our respective payments by 15 percent,” the letter said.
So rather than pay $333,256.20 as required under the first two parts of the formula, Little Rock would pay $283,268. North Little Rock would pay $125,878; Sherwood would pay $42,451; Jacksonville, $38,760; and Maumelle, $17,567.
The letter stated that if the final 2012 jail expenses reflect a smaller surplus,, the mayors are prepared to have their jurisdictions pay the extra money.
The mayors also suggested that other jurisdictions shoulder their share of the costs.
In Morgan’s memorandum, the jail counted a total of 2,216 arrests under a listing of “other agencies.” Those agencies included U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock police, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Arkansas State Police, the Arkansas Highway Police and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
“Pulaski County should collect an equal amount from the municipalities and other law enforcement agencies using the jail for prisoners in their custody,” the mayors said in the letter.
Villines said the proposal to pay for the jail on the basis of arrests is one that hasn’t been done. He also said he doesn’t even know if the county has the authority to ask state agencies to pay for the costs of people they arrest, noting that the state already pays the county for housing prisoners that have been convicted and are being held for state prisons. And some smaller jurisdictions, such as Wrightsville, pay the sheriff ’s office for law enforcement and, as such, their arrests are reflected in the arrests by sheriff’s deputies, Villines said.
He reiterated that he is prohibited from passing a budget that isn’t balanced. “It’s against the law.”
The mayors also noted that their proposal to cover the cost of holding more prisoners was a “one-time, non-precedential process and should not be presumed to be the methodology to be used when we later undertake negotiations for a new interlocal agreement” but added that if the county wanted to “explore ‘dedicated’ funding options, we would be happy to discuss.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/21/2012