LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - The Lancaster County corrections director would rather not have his jail handle any overflow from the state’s overcrowded prisons.
The Legislature has been wrestling with prison issues this session, including a discussion of where to put all the prisoners. As of Jan. 31, state correctional facilities held 4,918 inmates, nearly 155 percent of their design capacity.
The main budget bill would provide money to move 150 inmates now in state custody to county jails, the Lincoln Journal Star said (https://bit.ly/1giAjz1 ).
Lancaster County corrections director Mike Thurber says his jail has plenty of room. It has 779 beds and accommodates an average of up to 580 inmates a day.
But his staffing is another matter. Thurber told the newspaper that he has enough employees to adequately handle just 550 inmates.
“We’re trying to keep our costs as flat as we can,” he said.
The state used to retroactively reimburse counties $35 a day for each defendant eventually sentenced to state prisons. That changed in 2009, when the Legislature repealed the law allowing the reimbursements.
Thurber said the state still owed Lancaster County more than $3 million in back payments when the law changed. If the law hadn’t changed, Nebraska would owe the county $8 million, Thurber said.
Lancaster County Board Chairman Larry Hudkins said the $35 a day never came close to covering county costs, which Thurber said now costs the county $89 a day.
Nebraska prisons spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith said the state hasn’t yet asked any county to take any prisoners and doesn’t plan to force counties to take state prisoners even if the funding were approved.
And, she said, the state plans to pay any counties that help with the overflow whatever the counties agree is reasonable.
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, https://www.journalstar.com
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