An email sent Tuesday evening from Maine Sheriffs’ Association President Joel Merry to Sen. Linda Baker, R-Sagadahoc, urged a floor amendment to LD 186, a bill that will determine the future of Maine’s jails and the possible future tax burden on county residents.

Merry, who in addition to his duties as MSA president is also sheriff of Sagadahoc County and the former chairman of the State Board of Corrections, expressed his “very serious concerns” about the future of the county jail system in Maine.

A majority of the criminal justice committee members approved an amended version of LD 186, which, according to Merry, had good intentions.

“It was a very good attempt to transition the jails back to county control, with an increase in sustained funding from the state, and restrictions on growth to protect the municipal property taxpayers,” Merry said in his email.

However, according to the sheriff, “the final work session did not clear up all of the issues.” Chief among these is a provision that the amount provided by the state would be divided among all the jails. The amounts for each county would be based on the average daily number of prisoners per county.

On the face of it, the formula for allocating the amounts would seem to be a fair distribution of the state funds for jails ($14.6 million).

But Merry said “the bill is flawed” in that it does not take into account the fact that some county jails (sending jails) send their prisoners to board at jails in other counties (receiving jails). The bill provides that a sending jail would keep the amount it is paid to house a prisoner even if it sends the prisoner to a jail in another county and the receiving jail would not be permitted to charge a daily boarding fee to cover the costs of additional prisoners.

Two Bridges Regional Jail would receive its share of the state funding based on the average population of 75 inmates from its own counties: Lincoln and Sagadahoc.

However, the jail houses more than 180 inmates in total at a daily rate of $109 per prisoner.

Two Bridges might take prisoners from another county, but could not be compensated. Any monies apportioned to counties must remain with the county under the current language of the bill.  

Both the the Maine County Commissioners Association and the Maine Sheriffs’ Association hope that a last minute floor amendment will correct the language that places the financial future of Maine’s jails in question.