Overcrowding at the Dutchess County Jail is putting a strain on the jail’s annual budget, according to County Sheriff Adrian “Butch” Anderson. (Photo by I. MacFarland) |
As inmate overflow costs continue to spiral upward, there is little sign of progress toward a solution to Dutchess County’s jail overcrowding problem.
Sheriff Adrian “Butch” Anderson told legislators last week that since the jail had its overcrowding variance revoked in April, his office has exhausted more than one-third of its annual budget for housing out overflow inmates in other county jails.
“We will be back on a continuous basis to ask you for more money,” Anderson said.
Anderson spoke at the meeting during the Legislature’s public safety committee’s report to draw attention to the coming financial crunch.
Currently, the county pays $100 per inmate per day, plus transportation and overtime costs, to house overflow inmates at the Orange and Putnam county jails. Since April 24, when the county’s overcrowding variance was revoked, the county has spent nearly $457,000 on those housing costs.
Its budget for the entire year is $1.27 million.
That figure is based on an average of 35 inmates “housed out” per day, but the county is now housing out nearly twice that many on a daily basis. Anderson said 68 inmates were housed in Orange and Putnam counties last Thursday, when he addressed the Legislature, and the overflow population of late has hovered between 60 and 70 inmates per day.
While the jail’s official capacity is 286 inmates, it held a variance from the state for nearly two decades allowing the housing of 32 additional inmates. Even with the variance, the county routinely needed to transport additional prisoners to other county jails in the state, as far away as Washington County last year, according to Anderson.
Anderson said he held out little hope that the county could regain its variance, which was revoked by the state’s Commission of Corrections after the county’s inaction on plans to expand the jail. “They’ve told us they will not reinstate it,” Anderson said.
State officials have publicly demanded a 300-bed jail expansion – which would more than double the size of the current facility – since November of last year. The Legislature voted along party lines in January to approve a $560,000 bond to move forward with designs for an expanded jail, but County Executive William Steinhaus vetoed the measure, saying the expansion would be too costly.
Since then the sheriff has endorsed a 150-bed expansion plan that would expand alternative programs that keep certain nonviolent offenders out of jail. He said he now favors a 100-bed expansion that could be easily added to the existing jail building on North Hamilton Street.
Democrats on the Legislature have been uniformly opposed to any jail expansion, calling instead for a combination of enhanced alternative programs to relieve the overcrowding problems.
Steinhaus, meanwhile, has called on the sheriff and county and state legislators to negotiate with the Commission of Corrections for a less costly project.
State legislators returned in May with a plan that would speed up the processing time for prisoners who have violated their parole by bringing additional state personnel to the county. That program has yet to begin, however.
Anderson said there were just 16 parole violators in the jail at the time of his report, and their numbers have been steadily declining in recent weeks.
Legislature Chairman Brad Kendall (R-Dover) said this week that county officials are still working to find some common ground before taking their case to the state. “There have been a lot of discussions, but I can’t say there’s been a lot of progress,” he said.
A major stumbling block is that it’s cheaper in the short term to house out inmates than it is to build a new jail, Kendall said, though he believes it would ultimately cost more in the long term. “It’s hard sometimes to get people to think in the long term… Sure, it’s difficult, but that’s what we’re striving for.”
Anderson said that despite the lack of progress, he is willing to work with anybody who steps forward to take the lead on the expansion problem. “I’m willing to do whatever I can to get this together here,” he said. “But I run (the jail). I’m not an architect, I’m not an engineer.”