Five Maine jails are facing a funding shortfall, and are in need of a supplemental $2,500,000 to continue operations through June; should the funds not be made available by Maine’s Legislature, it could lead to the release of prisoners, jail officials have said.

Jail officials stated that 336 prisoners currently residing in county jails could be furloughed or released should the funds not be made available in June.

The five-member Maine State Board of Corrections has been functioning with only three members since it was revised by the Legislature in 2014.

Gov. Paul LePage has not filled the two governor-appointed slots on the board. The resignation just weeks ago of Amy Fowler, Waldo County Commissioner, left the board without a quorum.

The board’s activities have been suspended — without a quorum, the board cannot legally conduct any business.

The governor has been openly critical of the current structure and has stated that control of the jails should reside either with the state or with Maine’s counties. Because there is no quorum, jails have to go to the legislature, not the BOC, if they need emergency funding.

The Board of Corrections website says that BOC meetings have been postponed indefinitely.

According to testimony before the Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs on Tuesday, Jan. 20, Ryan Thornell, outgoing executive director of the board of corrections, an additional $2,500,000 would be needed to operate county jails through June 2015.

According to Col. Mark Westrum, Correctional Administrator for Lincoln and Sagadahoc Counties’ Two Bridges Regional Jail, the current funding crisis is not due to mismanagement of the jails, but rather a failure of state government to address systemic problems that began in the 1980s and have become compounded over time.

Specifically, Westrum pointed to two decisions that have placed significant additional expense on jail budgets.

First, he cited the decision made 30 years ago to require county jails to increase the holding time for state prisoners from six months to nine months. At the time, the state agreed to fund the additional three months with a subsidy, but the subsidy was only funded for one year.

In the early 1990s, the Community Corrections Act provided for a $5,600,000 annual payment from the state.

In 2006-07, the state prison system was again in a financial crisis and Maine faced the possibility of having to export some of the prisoners to other states. To avoid this, the decision was made to transfer those prisoners to county jails.

At that time, according to Westrum, the state calculated its payment to the county jails for housing prisoners at $22 per day. That amount has not been updated, and the daily cost for prisoners is now approximately $60-$75 per day.

The second decision creating additional expense for the county jails, according to Westrum, is the state’s decision to reduce the number of mental health institutions. With psychiatric hospitals decreasing, calls to police for assistance with a patient experiencing a mental illness can often end with the patient being brought to a county jail.