PPH: Maine lawmakers pass bill to return control of jails to counties

AUGUSTA — Both chambers of the Legislature have endorsed a bill that would return control of Maine’s county jails to county governments while continuing to provide state funding to the facilities.

The House voted 131-14 on Tuesday morning to support a bill that would undo a 2008 jail consolidation law that established the State Board of Corrections to oversee and improve coordination among county jails. The Legislature strengthened the corrections board last year, but Gov. Paul LePage – a vocal critic of the way jails are now run – rendered the board inoperable by refusing to fill vacant seats.

The bill now awaiting final approval in the House and Senate, L.D. 186, would remand control of the jails to the counties beginning July 1 by transferring funding from the treasury to a County Jail Operations Fund each month, rather than to the State Board of Corrections. The measure would provide $14.7 million in state funding to the operations fund, while counties would collect $62 million from municipalities for the jails – the same amount collected last year.

“This is the best path forward,” said Rep. Justin Chenette, D-Saco, a member of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee, which worked on the issue for much of the legislative session. “It keeps our county jails going.”

Touring Cumberland County Jail

If the state failed to provide its share of funding, county jails would be allowed to charge up to $108 per day for each “boarded” inmate who was transferred from another jail or prison. Boarding rates have been a point of contention in the jail funding debate, and emerged again Tuesday when lawmakers tried to amend L.D. 186 to allow jails to charge up to $108 even when the state is providing the full $14.7 million in funding to the jails.

But Rep. Lori Fowle, a Democrat from Vassalboro who co-chairs the Criminal Justice Committee, said the amendment would allow some jails to engage in “double dipping” by collecting their full share from the state while charging either the state or other municipalities to house transferred inmates. The amendment was killed on an 86-60 vote.

Earlier this year, LePage elevated the debate over control of the jails when he refused to nominate new members to the Board of Corrections, preventing the five-member board from achieving a quorum to exercise its authority. LePage said he did not have a strong preference about whether the state or the counties controlled the jails, but he argued the current system is wasting taxpayer money.

“I don’t care who runs it,” LePage said in January. “I don’t care if it comes back to the county, I don’t care if it’s (run by) the state. But you cannot have two bosses.”

BY KEVIN MILLER STAFF WRITER
kmiller@pressherald.com | @KevinMillerPPH | 207-791-6312

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