Marijuana Policy Project

CHARLESTON — Unloading some of the financial burden of the upkeep of inmates in regional jails on cities to bail counties out of a fiscal jam simply cannot work, Charleston Mayor Danny Jones advised lawmakers Sunday.

Counties are exploring many avenues for cutting their bills to regional jails, and one idea is to let the arresting agency assume the cost of booking their own prisoners.

But Jones said cities, likewise, are struggling to stay within their budgets.

"The counties want to push off the jail costs to us," Jones told the Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority. "It just doesn't make sense. It can't be solved by shoving it off to the cities."

Besides, he pointed out, "We arrest people on state laws. We take them to state magistrates."

Compared to some other locales, such as California, where the daily cost of taking care of inmates is as high as $300, Jones told the panel the $48.50 per diem counties now pay is "cheap."

"They must be feeding them steaks while we're feeding them beans and cornbread," quipped Sen. Shirley Love, D-Fayette, a co-chairman of the committee.

Jones said a portion of all court costs incurred in arrest cases within a municipality is sent to the Regional Jail Authority. But afterward, Patti Hamilton, executive director of the West Virginia Association of Counties, said the $40 the Charleston mayor alluded to is dedicated to the Regional Jail Authority's construction bonds and not the actual operating costs that counties pay.

"We do everything we can not to put people in jails," Jones said.

That prompted Delegate Corey Palumbo, D-Kanawha, to voice concern that police might be discouraged from making DUI arrests, if costs for such cases are thrown into the laps of municipalities.

Hamilton gave the panel a number of ideas for trimming the financial load on counties, such as eliminating the mandatory, 24-hour lockup of first-time DUI offenders, or people incarcerated for nonpaying of fines.

"If the problem is an unpaid citation, you're not making any money while you're in jail," she said.

And in many instances, she said, a convicted DUI driver eventually gets arrested again for drinking on a suspended or revoked license.

"It's kind of getting to be a vicious cycle," she said.

Cabell County recently was ordered to pay its delinquent bill, but the state Supreme Court said the Legislature needs to revisit the issue so that counties aren't paying such steep bills. A year ago in Raleigh County, for instance, the bill shot past $2.5 million.

Hamilton also called for a higher tax on alcoholic beverages, noting that nearly one-fourth of all convictions have the term "alcohol" in the original charge.

The panel agreed to a proposed higher barrel tax on beer, with Sens. Jon Blair Hunter, D-Monongalia, and Andy McKenzie, R-Ohio, voting against it.

Jones' remarks led the committee to delay any action on a proposal that would force an arresting agency to assume the costs of putting inmates in jail.

Hunter said he would be willing to sponsor a bill that would eliminate the 24-hour jail sentence in first-time DUI cases.

"I don't think that does any good whatsoever," he said.