Senate approves boost in $$ to county jails for housing state inmates, sends to governor

The Senate has voted 30-5 in favor of HB 533 , which raises the reimbursement rate that the state pays to county jails when it houses state prisoners there. The daily rate would rise from the current $45 to $55 for the first seven days that a state prisoner is in a county jail, and after seven days, it would rise to $75 a day.

Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow, said the actual cost to counties of housing state prisoners runs around $81 a day, and the rate the state pays has only increased by $10 over the past 20 years. That, he said, leaves “the respective county taxpayers to make up the cost of this through their property taxes.”

The change could cost the state anywhere from $3 million to $11 million next year, but Foreman said, “It will provide just relief to our county property taxpayers by providing fair rates of pay.”

Sen. Jeff Agenbroad, R-Nampa, said the state Department of Correction has little control over moving prisoners out of county jails after seven days. “While I stand in favor of increasing the rates to the counties, I think this bill goes too far,” he said.

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, agreed. “Our population is rising, our crime rate is rising, our prisoners are rising,” she said. “We will have to grapple as a state with building another prison. This bill doesn’t provide a range of flexibility, and it is something we could do better on.”

Sen. Abby Lee, R-Fruitland, spoke in favor of the bill. “Currently there is an incentive for the Department of Correction to save money by keeping these inmates in county facilities,” she said. Plus, she said offenders sentenced to state prisons on serious crimes shouldn’t be commingled with county jail inmates who are in for lesser offenses. “Several of our counties have come forward,” she said. “They simply are full, and they are full with inmates who really are the responsibility of the Department of Correction.”

Senate Judiciary Chair Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston, also spoke in favor of the bill, which was proposed by the Idaho Sheriffs Association. “We need to be responsible for those prisoners,” she said. “We’ve been holding off for years in building new state prison facilities. … We need to step up and take this responsibility.”

The House-passed bill now heads to Gov. Butch Otter.