The Pulaski County Quorum Court's agenda committee unanimously sent an ordinance to the full Quorum Court that will set a daily fee for municipalities to keep inmates in the county jail if a new agreement cannot be reached on a flat fee.
The ordinance will charge municipalities $64.70 per day per inmate unless an agreement is made between the county judge, Barry Hyde, and mayors in the county.
Pulaski County cities are seeking to pay a lower amount to use the jail because of the economic toll of the pandemic, according to Hyde.
"In the case of 2020, let's hope nothing else turns upside down, the cities are very worried about their sales tax as well as other revenue shortages that they have declining sharply over the next three quarters to a year, as several economic forecasts predict," Hyde said.
Pulaski County municipalities shifted from running their own jails when the county jail opened in the 1990s. Since then, municipalities have been contracting with the county to house their inmates.
Justice of the Peace Phil Stowers told other members of the agenda committee Tuesday night that he backs the passage of the ordinance for more than one reason.
"What this is, is a backstop in the event that the county judge and the mayors are not able to come to an agreement on what that flat fee is, then this ordinance would then go into effect," Stowers said during the meeting. "And instead of the municipalities paying just a flat fee annually regardless of the number of offenders they bring to the center, they would pay based on a per diem."
Stowers thinks that having a daily rate per inmate would push criminal-justice changes, making sure those locked up are dangerous to the community.
"If a mayor realizes that for every person his or her police department brings to the detention center that they are going to pay a per-day price, they're going to take a hard look at 'are we locking up people that we're mad at or are we locking up people that are a danger to society?'" Stowers said in an interview.
Under the flat rate, Stowers also thinks Little Rock and North Little Rock have been getting charged less for how much they use the jail while smaller cities like Jacksonville and Maumelle have unfairly high amounts to pay.
"I feel like under the flat fee right now that the cities pay that Sherwood, Maumelle and Jacksonville come out on the short end of the stick, and Little Rock and North Little Rock get a sweet deal," Stowers said. "I feel like moving to a per diem, which is what the ordinance is, would be a more equitable manner of reimbursement for use of the jail."
Hyde is the only person in the county government that can negotiate those deals, and the Quorum Court holds no power in the decision making for how much the county is paid by cities.
"I would hope that the negotiations would break down between the county judge and the mayors and that the ordinance would go into effect," Stowers said.
Hyde said he spoke with Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr., North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith and other mayors had input asking for a lower fee for using the jail because of falling revenue.
"They asked for some relief or some compassion, that their revenue may be down anywhere from 5% to 20% depending on what happens next," Hyde said.
This year is the second in a row with an increase in cost for the cities' use of the jail, with the fees increasing 25% between 2019 and 2020, according to Pulaski County Comptroller Michael Hutchens.
According to Hutchens, in 2020 the county received:
• $932 from Cammack Village.
• $2,479,760 from Little Rock.
• $268,851 from Jacksonville.
• $68,520 from Maumelle.
• $1,066,716 from North Little Rock.
• $178,380 from Sherwood.
• $2,571 from Wrightsville.
Hyde said he plans a much smaller increase this time but with a quarterly review to determine any changes that need to be made.
"I have agreed their rates will increase 3% this year effective Jan.1 and that we will meet at the end of each quarter to look at the revenue sources to see if they have fallen from the previous year's revenue totals, or they're up," Hyde said. "And if they are up then we will work on an adjustment to what their payments have been for that quarter to try to make it more equitable to the county."
North Little Rock's Smith emphasized that the calculations for who should pay what are not possible with the county's or the cities' current situations.
"The issue is its almost impossible to keep up with a daily rate, when someone's incarcerated, when they're released, how many hours were they really there," Smith said. "And so it created a bookkeeping nightmare that none of us were really comfortable with [or] that there was a computer system capable of doing that."
Smith said the Pulaski County sheriff's office has an incomplete computer system to calculate the exact cost, but it's "not ready for prime time."
Another difficulty he mentioned is who pays for prisoners held on out-of-county charges.
"If we arrest somebody who's wanted in Arkadelphia and put him in our jail, does Arkadelphia pay for that?" Smith asked.
The computing system was introduced with the intention to handle gathering and organizing that data, but, with recent staff changes in the finance division, officials are not able to get the data for billing the cities in the detail needed by the county.
"I think they have the software provider working on that with them right now, but we don't anticipate that will be corrected before the first of the year," Hyde said. "And given the uncertainty the economy has in the next year for the cities, I think the appropriate thing to do is to try it and set up an agreement that is fair to them and fair to the county."
When asked about discussions with the judge, Scott said they were ongoing and that an agreement had not yet been signed. He declined to say any more about the discussions.
Hyde hopes to have the agreement signed in writing by the end of October but expects the yearly meeting with the mayors in late November to be the latest it is signed.