This article is timely and hard hitting…

Waldo County Treasurer, David Parkman,

joins a widening chorus of debate over
prison reform in Maine, driven, in large part,
by the enormous cost in human life and
resources… www.stanmoody.com

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

State Correctional System 'Built On Toothpicks,' Officials Say

By J.W. Oliver
Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Lincoln County officials,

in interviews, documents
and public remarks,
continued a scathing
criticism of the Board of
Corrections, the Dept. of
Corrections (DOC) and
the state-run correctional
system this week.

Lincoln County currently

pays over $100,000 to
house an inmate for a
The Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset.
year, Lincoln County
(File photo) Administrator John
O'Connell said in a Dec.
20 interview.

Including debt service, Lincoln County will spend $3,810,939 on the jail in 2011 - about 36.92
percent of the county budget. Twenty-four Lincoln County prisoners were at the jail Dec. 20.
Although 24 is an unusually low count, if a similar average persists throughout 2011, Lincoln
County will spend $158,789.13 - $435.04 per day - on each local prisoner.

The Two Bridges Regional Jail budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, not including debt
service, is $7,031,165. Lincoln County will pay $2,799,476, about 40 percent of the total
budget and 58 percent of the Lincoln/Sagadahoc (the "operating members") portion of the
budget.

Only Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties pay for the debt service, which will amount to
$36,279,550 over the lifetime of the $24.6 million loan.

The Lincoln-Sagadahoc inequality, particularly, has been a source of frustration for Lincoln
County officials. Lincoln County, with 24 inmates to Sagadahoc's 52 as of Dec. 20, currently
pays 58 percent of the operating members' share of the Two Bridges Regional Jail budget.

Lincoln County filed a lawsuit against Sagadahoc County on Oct. 26, 2009, in an attempt to
enforce the terms of a 2005 cost-sharing agreement between the counties. "We are waiting for
the ruling from the Superior Court," O'Connell said Dec. 20.

The cost-sharing agreement determines each county's contribution according to a formula

"based upon the number of Prisoners actually committed..."

Sagadahoc County and the Board of Directors of the Lincoln and Sagadahoc Multicounty Jail
Authority maintain that a 2007 bill, officially titled An Act To Better Coordinate and Reduce
the Cost of the Delivery of State and County Correctional Services, supersedes the cost-
sharing agreement.

The legislation, also known as Public Law 653 or the jail cap, locks in county contributions to
the jail at their 2007-2008 level.

District 53 Rep. Les Fossel (R-Alna) recently agreed to sponsor legislation to repeal the bill.

"The consensus" among the Lincoln County legislative delegation "has been that this is not
saving the state any money," Fossel said Dec. 21. "It was a poor decision on the part of the
Baldacci administration and the people who passed the bill."

Exacerbating these issues, Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties pay a disproportionately large
percentage of incarceration costs for Waldo County and DOC inmates. DOC pays Two
Bridges Regional Jail $22.96 per day to house state inmates.

According to a Dec. 14 letter from O'Connell to the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners,
the state pays "approximately $100 per day" - four times what they pay Two Bridges - to
house inmates at the Maine State Prison.

According to O'Connell, Waldo County pays the state to house their prisoners. The state, in
turn, sends Waldo County prisoners to Two Bridges Regional Jail - again, for $22.96 per day -
and pockets any difference.

According to the Waldo County website, the Waldo County Correctional Center, as a result of
a "mission change" maintains a 72-hour holding facility and is the home of the Maine Coastal
Regional Reentry Center, a program that seeks to "successfully integrate" inmates back into
the general public and provide "intensive treatment designed to reduce recidivism rates."

Waldo County transfers prisoners requiring a stay in excess of 72 hours to Two Bridges
Regional Jail.

"They took our jail and made it into a dormitory," Waldo County Treasurer David Parkman
said Dec. 21. Now, without a full-service jail, Waldo County still contributes the same amount
- about $2.8 million - under the terms of the jail cap.

According to Parkman, the state allows Waldo County to keep whatever is necessary to run
the holding facility and the reentry center. The county submits the balance - about $919,000
this year - to the state. The state, in turn, houses long-term Waldo County inmates at Two
Bridges Regional Jail for $22.96 per day.

"You can't eat on that, let alone the bed," Parkman said. At times, Waldo County inmates at
Two Bridges Regional Jail have outnumbered Lincoln and Sagadahoc inmates.

"If the average person knew how this system was run, they'd be appalled," Parkman said.
"This whole system - it's all built on toothpicks and it's ready to go."

"If [Two Bridges Regional Jail] fail[s] down there, we're in big trouble up here because we
have no jail," Parkman said. "This is not a consolidation of jails, this is a consolidation of
power at the state level."

"Sixty percent of the [inmates] at Two Bridges come from outside Lincoln and Sagadahoc
counties," Lincoln County Commissioner Bill Blodgett said at a Dec. 16 meeting of the South
Bristol Board of Selectmen. "[The state] still [has] empty beds [at the Maine State Prison] in
Warren but it's cheaper for them to send their inmates to Two Bridges."

The Dept. of Corrections (DOC) chooses to leave an entire, 60-bed pod vacant at the Warren
facility, O'Connell said, due in part to maintenance, staffing and morale problems.

DOC Deputy Commissioner Denise Lord confirmed the vacancy of the pod. "We lost 18
positions at the Maine State Prison" due to recent budget cuts, Lord said. "We gave up 30
positions department-wide."
Lord, however, said the Board of Corrections (BOC) - a separate entity from the Dept. of
Corrections - funds "every single county jail... at what they need to run the jail at a certain
[average daily population],"

"Every jail is 100 percent funded through the Board of Corrections," Lord said. "I'm not sure
what Mr. O'Connell is referring to."

O'Connell, however, isn't the only official calling for reformation. The entire Lincoln County
Board of Commissioners (Blodgett's fellows, Lynn Orne and Sheridan Bond, have spoken
forcefully and publicly in favor of repeal), Fossel and municipal officials have decried the
failings of the current system.

Robert S. Howe, the Executive Director of the Maine County Commissioners Association,
made a call for reform in a Nov. 16 paper recounting the history of the Board of Corrections.

"The BOC must now take a closer look at the Department of Corrections - its budget, its
mission and its facilities," Howe wrote.

"Failure to do that will reinforce the growing believe [sic] that county jails are being
cannibalized in order [to] serve the needs of the state," Howe wrote. "County officials,
including many who were initially enthusiastic supporters of the Board of Corrections, are
becoming increasingly concerned that a proverbial train wreck lies ahead."
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