Waldo County vote set on jail proposal

BELFAST – Although the proposed Waldo County jail will have triple the beds and double the employees, the projected yearly cost of running the facility would be about the same as that of the current jail.

According to figures submitted by jail consultant Curtis Pulitzer of Pulitzer Bogard & Associates of Lido, N.Y., the estimated annual cost of running the new jail would be $1,198,249.

The operating budget for the jail through December is $1,082,633, although that figure is expected to increase in the wake of the Department of Corrections’ decision to reduce the number of inmates allowed at the 30-year-old jail. The department has reduced the number of inmates at the jail from the current level of 36 to 23.

“That’s about a $100,000 increase to the county for three times the capacity,” Pulitzer informed the county commissioners on Tuesday.

The county has proposed building a 70-bed jail and sheriff’s office on a 100-acre parcel off Congress Street in Belfast. The estimated cost of the jail is $17.9 million, to be paid for by a 25-year municipal bond. County voters will act on the proposal at the Nov. 4 referendum election.

Pulitzer said the new jail could operate at the $1.2 million level despite the fact that it would require 40 full-time employees to run the facility compared with the 22 needed today. He said the county would be able to provide for the extra staff by raising $465,375 in revenues by boarding prisoners from other counties. “While there will certainly be more staff required to operate the new Waldo County Correctional Center than the existing facility, that is primarily because the effective capacity is more than two times greater,” Pulitzer reported. “The more efficient design and layout of the new facility will also permit correctional center administrators to assign staff to designated posts while also providing direct supervision and-or surveillance of the inmate population and critical operational functions of the correctional center.”

When revenues from boarding prisoners are taken into consideration, the base cost of running the new jail works out to an inmate-per-day rate of $52.11, compared with the current per diem rate of $82.39.

In the event the jail was filled solely with Waldo County prisoners, the inmate per diem rate would be $72.35 and the annual operating expenses $1,663,624.

“Per diem operating costs will prove to be significantly lower than current figures due to the benefits of economies of scale and an efficient design,” noted Pulitzer.

Pulitzer said he based his figures on hosting an average of 48 Waldo County inmates and 15 prisoners from other counties per day. That amounts to 63 inmates, seven short of the new jail’s proposed capacity.

Along with the estimated annual $1.2 million cost of running the jail, the annual cost of borrowing to fund construction of the proposed $17.9 million jail would add an estimated $1.2 million to the county budget. The 2003 county budget was $4.7 million.