McHenry County questions jail-rental program - News - Journal Star - Peoria, IL

Note to readers:  Boone County earlier this year signed a $85 per day agreement with the Federal Marshall Program-- that contact was negotiated with the help of an expensive consultant.  See that story at:  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2013/12/boone-county-risks-20k-to-generate.htmlBy the Associated Press

Journal Star

By the Associated Press

Posted Dec. 28, 2014 @ 5:00 pm

By the Associated Press
Posted Dec. 28, 2014 @ 5:00 pm

WOODSTOCK, Ill. — A jail-rental program with the federal government that has produced more than $73 million in the past decade has some McHenry County officials nonetheless wondering if it is worth it.

The (Crystal Lake) Northwest Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1Aco4SX) that county taxpayers have subsidized the initiative to temporarily house detainees of the U.S. Marshals Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

They question whether the agreement should be renewed when it expires at the end of 2015.

At issue is the $85-a-day per-bed rate, which hasn't changed since 2008. A lobbyist hired by the county in 2013 found the county's cost is $131 daily. But that report has been criticized as oversimplified.

County Administrator Peter Austin claims the cost varies. He contends that while there are fixed costs to providing the jail, which the county must do by state law, the population varies, changing the daily inmate cost.

"We have to turn the oven on whether we're making 200 biscuits or 400 biscuits," Austin said.

The county has asked for an increase from its federal partners. The Marshals Service agreed to a $10-a-day increase — and then pulled its detainees the next day. Federal authorities note that other facilities in the Chicago area charge less — Dodge County, Wisconsin, has a $60-a-day rate.

ICE uses the McHenry County lockup to a greater degree than the Marshals Service did. In 2012, for example, the average daily ICE population was 241 compared to 45 in the Marshals' custody. But the county has felt additional financial pressure as the overall population has dropped from an average of 350 a day in 2011 to 180 daily this year, not counting December.

A consultant the county hired in the spring of 2013 plugged the county's costs into a federal reimbursement formula and determined the county was paying $131 per day to house the inmates.

That outraged some officeholders.

"We're talking between $40 and $50 million over a seven-year period," county board member Donna Kurtz said. "This never should have happened."

Information from: The Northwest Herald, http://www.nwherald.com

Above is from:  McHenry County questions jail-rental program - News - Journal Star - Peoria, IL

 

This problem has been a concern of some McHenry County board members for months.  SEE the First Electric Newspaper article of March 5, 2014 (http://www.firstelectricnewspaper.com/2014/03/county-board-members-ask-for-real-costs.html)

 

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

County Board Members Ask For Real Costs At McHenry County Jail

 

Controversy building behind the scenes for the past month about the cost of housing federal inmates at the McHenry County Jail finally broke out in public complaints at Tuesday's McHenry County Board meeting.  Administrator Peter Austin announced hopes the County will get more money per prisoner, at least for some prisoners, "within 30 days" but members complained bitterly that they're being kept in the dark about what it really costs to house one.
Finance Committee Vice Chairman Donna Kurtz charged that, using the only numbers available, McHenry County's lost $30 milllion keeping federal prisoners in McHenry County Jail since 2008.  "This isn't beanbag," she said.  "We're talking real money."
The problem, as Austin laid it out, is that the County houses a lot of federal prisoners for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshall's Service but the rate of payment hasn't gone up in six years.  The County's been trying to boost it since July of 2012 but without success, even after hiring a $60,000 expert who said he'd have a new contract in the bag by last July 31.  Austin, returned Monday from a trip to Washington,  said ICE still wasn't talking but that he'd secured an "oral agreement" with the Marshall's office, yet to be confirmed,  that he estimated would bring in another $1 million.
Former head of the Board's Justice Committee, Nick Provenzano, complained that was all very well but not much help if Members didn't know how much it cost the County to house prisoners in the first place.  Referring to an $85 per-day figure provided by consultant Joseph Summerill last year,  Provenzano asked, "Are they accurate or are they not accurate?"
"They're not accurate," replied Austin who hastened to say that the way federal officials figure prisoner costs isn't the same as the way the County figures them.  Austin said Summerill's Jail costs were more suggestive than definitive when he was trying to convince the Board to hire him..
"It was not presented to us as an illustration in a sales brochure," complained Member John Hammerand.  "It's infuriating to me."
Kurtz charged Summerill's numbers were sold to the Board as authoritative.  "Sheriff Nygren, Undersheriff Zinke and [Sheriff's Business Manager] Angela [Wood-Zuzevich] all nodded their heads," she said.  "I trust Sheriff Nygren when he said he was behind the numbers."
But if the Summerill numbers are no good, what are the real ones, inquired Member Paula Yensen?  "Many of us have been asking for that information," she complained.
FEN's been trying to find out, too., filing a Freedom of Information Act request last month for the federally-required Jail Operating Expense Information report McHenry County had to submit for the latest round of negotiations.  It lists 43 different kinds of Jail expenditures that the U.S. Department of Justice considers at least theoretically allowable in setting bed-rental rates.  In fact, FEN filed two requests since it wasn't clear who had the report and Summerill didn't reply to inquiries.  The one to McHenry County Administration was turned down on the premise the report was among "proposals and bids for any contract" and "preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations and memoranda",  both of which are exempt from disclosure.  The one to the Sheriff's Office was answered, eventually, with what appeared to be a standard printout of how close last year's Jail budget came to actual expenditures.  (Answer: pretty close.)
Austin told the County Board other newspapers have been inquiring about Jail costs, too, but said, "I'm not going to negotiate in public."