Parties look for common ground on jails plan

AUGUSTA – Representatives of the Maine County Commissioners Association and the Maine Sheriff’s Association will continue to strategize this morning before the legislative hearing on the governor’s jail consolidation plan.

The two associations, which presented their own proposal to reduce property costs by creating an authority rather than closing the jails, met Friday and Saturday in Augusta with Department of Corrections officials. The emphasis of the two meetings was to find common ground between the two proposals that would be palatable to both.

“We all want the same thing but we have had different ideas of how to get there, and I think we’re coming together on how to do that,” Waldo County Sheriff Scott Storey said Sunday.

Storey, who attended both Friday’s and Saturday’s discussions, said representatives of the associations planned to meet again this morning to continue the discussion.

Gov. John Baldacci has proposed combining the state and county jails into one state system by July 1. His latest plan to be aired today would not close the Piscataquis, Oxford, Franklin and Waldo county jails as proposed earlier this year, but would convert them into 72-hour holding facilities under contract with the state. In addition, Kennebec County Jail would be converted into a pretrial detention center, and the Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset would become a specialty unit for inmates who need mental health treatment.

Baldacci claims his unification proposal would save taxpayers $7 million the first year, $23 million by 2013 and $38 million by 2015. The savings would come from eliminating state funding to county jails, cutting about 100 county jobs and reducing boarding fees by more evenly distributing prisoners in the new system.

The association’s plan keeps the jails open and establishes an authority that would track the available jail beds and their locations to improve efficiency and provide property tax relief. The jails would operate as they now do with counties responsible for their operation and budgets, and the Department of Health and Human Services would be responsible for mental health services. The plan of the two associations would cost about $1.5 million yearly with startup costs of about $1 million.

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