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| Counties Won't Be Paid For State Inmates |
| By calhouncountyjournal.com |
| Published: 02/19/2010 |
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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps has notified sheriffs that their counties will no longer be paid for housing state inmates. In letters this week to all 82 sheriffs, Epps said the funding will end March 15. The state pays the counties $20 per day per inmate, plus medical costs, to house the inmates. In return, the counties use the inmates for local labor, including such things as litter pickup and building repairs and painting. Inmates convicted of violent crimes do not participate in the program. According to the Mississippi Department of Corrections, 841 state inmates were housed in local jails as of Thursday. In his letter, Epps said the corrections department has taken steps to deal with $29.4 million in funding cuts ordered this fiscal year by Gov. Haley Barbour. Epps said those steps - including a hiring freeze and early release for qualified inmates - haven't been enough. Epps said he hoped sheriffs would keep some of the state inmates because of their value to the counties. If not, he asked the sheriffs to contact him before March 15 so he could make arrangements to pick them up. "I deeply regret having to take this action, but the state's budgetary situation leaves me no other option at this time," Epps said in the letter. Gov. Haley Barbour has cut $458.5 million from what started last summer as a nearly $6 billion state budget because revenues are lagging. He said he'll veto a bill that would take $79 million from the state's financial reserves and use it to restore part of the cuts. The bill - passed last week by the House and Thursday by the Senate - would give most of the $79 million to elementary and secondary education, and Barbour said that would hurt other programs, including corrections. Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, said Friday that Barbour is playing political games to try to shrink the size of state government. "All this talk about corrections is a completely manufactured crisis by the governor to divert attention away from the real issue," Bryan said Friday. Bryan said Barbour has control over tens of millions of dollars of federal stimulus money and could use some of that to plug holes in the prison system's budget. "He doesn't understand apparently, except for the Department of Corrections, that state revenue by and large goes to the core functions of government," Bryan said. Read More. |
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