Faced with headline-generating issues, members of the Two Bridges Regional Jail Authority held a special meeting on Feb. 11.

The meeting was called for the purpose of discussing budgets and the current LD 186, which is before the Legislature and likely to change jail supervision and funding.

Providing an update for the members, Sagadahoc Sheriff Joel Merry, who also is head of the Board of Corrections and President of the Maine Sheriff’s Association, explained that the Legislature is wrestling with the issues facing the state’s jails. Debate concerning the jails’ future is happening daily in Augusta.

In the near term, Merry said, Cumberland County is going ahead with its announced plan to send 69 prisoners back to their original counties. The prisoners would be returned to Kennebec, Oxford, Androscoggin and Penobscot counties at the end of this month.

Mark Westrum, Jail Administrator for Two Bridges, believes that the jail will be able to get through until the end of June by not hiring new personnel.

“I am confidant that we will make it, if we are careful,” he told the other authority members.

The budget discussion then turned to the possibility of entering into a contract arrangement with other counties for their prisoners. The contract approach would mean that TBRJ would “reserve” space for prisoners from other counties each year; and that TBRJ would receive an annual payment for a certain number of available beds at the contracted rate.

Westrum indicated that the jail has the capacity to hold more inmates than those from Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties; and in order to be efficient, the jail needs to operate at full capacity.

“As the debt service comes down, the operating costs have gone up,” Westrum pointed out, stating that the current cost per prisoner is $161 per day. “The most cost-effective population is the higher population. The same staff is here, no matter how many prisoners are here.”

The members of the jail authority entered into a discussion about taking a position on LD 186. Approving the bill as written became a matter for some discussion after Lincoln County Commissioner William Blodgett reminded members that a previous jail bill needed to have special language added to so that the Regional Authority would be included.

Blodgett cautioned that the language in the current bill “may not apply to a regional jail, and we are the only regional jail.”

After some discussion, the members agreed to refer review of the bill’s language to the jail authority’s attorney. 

In a carefully worded statement they agreed that: “The Jail Authority supports the concept behind LD 186 as long as the wording is crafted to include our unique existence as a Regional Authority.”