Pulaski County Judge-elect Barry Hyde said the county will charge Jacksonville the daily rate for holding inmates in the county jail that was recently passed by the Quorum Court if Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher continues to resist signing onto an interlocal agreement to contribute to the lockup.
Fletcher had previously said he would include $201,070.80 in the city's budget for payments toward the $25.1 million Pulaski County jail -- the same amount the county was requesting for 2015 -- but that he would not ask the City Council at its special Dec. 29 meeting to approve entering the five-year agreement proposed by the county.
Based on 2013 estimates, the per-inmate, per-day rate would cost the city more than $500,000 in 2015, if arrest rates hold.
Negotiations for an interlocal agreement to fund the Pulaski County jail, replacing the deal that expired Aug. 1, have been accompanied by a doubling of state prisoners in the county jail that has prompted the jail's closure to most nonviolent, nonfelony offenders for more than 100 days this year.
Cities contributed $2.9 million toward the jail in 2014 and would be on the hook for $3 million altogether in 2015, if Jacksonville agrees to the new contract.
Little Rock's City Board approved entering into the agreement last week after months of resistance, leaving Jacksonville as the only holdout. North Little Rock, Sherwood and Maumelle signed on this summer.
"I'm not going to be blackmailed into signing something," Fletcher said.
"I'm disappointed to hear that," Hyde told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Hyde said he would have to enforce the ordinance that the Quorum Court passed in July calling for a per-day, per-inmate charge against each city with inmates in the jail in the absence of a separate interlocal agreement to contribute funds. The charge would be $245 on an inmate's first day and $44 for all subsequent days the inmate is in the jail without being bound over to circuit court.
Fletcher said he doesn't want to sign a contract because he wants to keep negotiating.
"I think if I sign a contract, I won't have anyone listening to me," Fletcher said. "I don't know what more I can do to get anyone's attention to sit down at the table," he added.
Fletcher believes the amount the city has been paying as a part of the interlocal agreement is too high and cites his city's comparable population to Sherwood, which paid less toward the jail this year.
"It's really kind of ironic to me that the county's hollering about how they're getting treated by the state, but I'm here hollering about how I'm getting treated by the county," Fletcher said.
County Judge Buddy Villines has argued for months that the interlocal agreement that expired this year was never based on population and that the one the county proposed for the next five years is not, either.
The proposed agreement is based on the one that expired this year -- a 24-year-old agreement that figured city contributions toward the new county jail using the amount each city was paying for its city jail in 1990.
For the new agreement, Villines proposed an immediate 5 percent increase in payments for the first year and a 3 percent inflation factor for nine years after that. Cities negotiated the contract down to five years from 10 years and changed the inflation adjustment to a consumer price index factor not to exceed a 3 percent increase.
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola proposed a one-year extension of the agreement that expired this year, but Villines rejected it.
Fletcher asked the Pulaski County Quorum Court to approve lowering the amount Jacksonville pays to $145,000, but justices of the peace did not take up the matter.
There were no other concrete proposals from the cities.
Stodola successfully lobbied the county to include a clause allowing for the five-year agreement to be renegotiated should the county experience a substantial change in the amount of money it receives from the state.
Stodola said he plans to ask Hyde to restart negotiations if the state Legislature increases the reimbursement rate paid to county jails for holding state inmates. The Association of Arkansas Counties has requested an increase from $28 to $35, although it estimates the average cost for holding inmates in jails across the state to be $49.35.
If the Legislature doesn't approve an increase, Stodola said he won't ask for a renegotiation.
"I guess the question is, if there's no material change, I don't know what there is to renegotiate," he said.
Hyde said he won't pursue a renegotiation next year unless the cities want to open up talks again.
"The contract is in place and it's executed, and I'm the new judge and I have to live with it," he said. "I can't say to the other cities who have already executed it, 'We'll do something different.'"
Metro on 12/21/2014