Jail referendum passes by 28 votes

SKOWHEGAN – All eyes were on Embden on Wednesday as this tiny town’s 258 votes turned out to be pivotal in deciding the outcome of the $30 million Somerset County jail referendum.

The result wasn’t known until well into the afternoon and it was a hair-splitter: In a county of 51,000 residents, the jail referendum passed by a mere 28 votes.

“I’m not surprised it was that close,” Commissioner Gerry York of Fairfield admitted Wednesday afternoon. “We were well aware of the concerns people had about the initial impact on their taxes. But overall, this jail will reduce their taxes in the long run.”

The delay in determining the final vote count was caused by a power outage Tuesday night in Embden, a town of 881 residents.

Sheriff Barry DeLong and the county commissioners waited all morning, painfully aware that before Embden’s votes, the jail referendum was winning by only 33 votes. There also was some initial confusion about whether 117 or 171 voters in Cornville approved the project, numbers that could have killed the referendum.

But the commissioners aren’t breathing easy yet. Paul Hatch, chairman of the commissioners, said the county must wait five days to see if anyone demands a recount. He said that if the difference in votes is less than 2 percent, the state will pay for a recount.

Hatch didn’t agree with York about being surprised by the tight vote. “I think the Question 1 issue brought out a lot of people who were caught off guard by the jail question and just voted no against spending $30 million,” Hatch said.

The focus throughout this winter, Hatch said, will be refining the project and trimming costs. “We will be going into depth to determine exactly what we want, fine-tuning the proposal. Any place we can save money without sacrificing quality, we’ll do,” he said.

County officials campaigned hard for the jail referendum, visiting individual communities, appearing on local cable television stations and putting out fliers. They said that the jail was desperately needed to avoid extraordinary boarding costs because Somerset County’s inmates outnumber its ability to house them. In addition, jail construction costs are $280 to $380 per square foot and are rising at 10 percent per year.

The existing 100-year-old jail is operating under a state variance that allows the county to board 55 rather than 45 inmates and officials with the Maine Department of Corrections said that the variance would continue in effect if the referendum passed.

The commissioners have said the $30 million estimate is high and that once bids are accepted, the price should be considerably lower. In addition, charging other counties to board their prisoners at Somerset’s facility could, over time, pay for the initial construction costs, commissioners maintained.

York said not only could the jail accept inmates from other counties, but also could accept federal prisoners at a higher rate.

“The cost of renting beds in other jails is now over $100 a day, a price that is four times higher than it was a decade ago,” said Commissioner Chairman Paul Hatch. “There is no reason to believe that cost won’t continue to rise. A conservative estimate is that we could collect $22 million in rent fees before we need all the cells ourselves. That is roughly the cost of the jail construction.”

Hatch said that once the construction loan for a new jail is retired, more than $4 million a year will be saved and, over a 30-year period, the savings are “even more significant.”