Advocates for county government in Kentucky hoped state lawmakers would do more to address the costs of housing inmates at jails and covering the cost of their medical care during this year’s legislative session.
Although the issue was discussed, and one bill was passed to assist with inmate medical expenses, county leaders across the state still want more to be done in next year’s General Assembly to offset the costly practice of running a jail.
Owen County Judge-Executive Billy O’Banion said the jail fund has an impact of $180,000 to $200,000 annually on the county’s general fund.
He said that money could be spent on other quality-of-life projects if the state committed more money to counties to cover jail expenses.
The two main issues county officials are concerned with are jail-bed-allotment money and the cost of housing inmates prior to sentencing.
County leaders across Kentucky argue that inmates are jailed for violating state offenses and, because inmates are often credited for time served prior to sentencing, that the tab for housing inmates during that time should be picked up by the state.
Vince Lang, executive director of the Kentucky County Judge-Executive Association, said jail funding statewide takes about $120 million from other county projects. About $45 million of that, he said, is from the cost of housing inmates before sentencing.
“The real issue, we believe, is that, No. 1, the jail should not be a county responsibility,” said Bob Arnold, executive director of the Kentucky Association of Counties (KACo), a group that lobbies on behalf of county governments. “They are in jail because they broke a state law.”
House Bill 187 passed the House  but failed to make it out of the Senate. The bill, sponsored by House Speaker Jodie Richards, D-Bowling Green, initially sought to address the per-diem rate counties are reimbursed prior to sentencing.
The bill also sought to establish a commission to study the issue, according to Richards’ chief of staff, David Kaplan.
Another bill, HB 191, passed both houses during the 2007 session with an amendment allotting up to $3 million to be used by the state Department of Corrections to take custody of an inmate and provide medical and prescription drug care at the department’s discretion.
However, the bill does not appropriate any additional funding for the provision, meaning the corrections department must find the funding within its own budget, Kaplan said.
He said the two state houses tried to coordinate on the issue during the short session “but time ran out.”
He expects the Legislature to discuss the issue more in-depth during the longer General Assembly next year.
Lang called HB 191 a “comprehensive approach” to addressing the cost of medical expenses for inmates. He said he felt counties got something “in between” the different measures considered, when HB 191 was passed.
Lang said the bill’s passage indicated progress was made, but more must be done to help counties that struggle with jail-related costs.
Arnold agreed.
“The bottom line is we really didn’t get much help,” he said. “The issue is the General Assembly had the opportunity to do something, and they did not.”
The judge-executive association began talking with lawmakers two years ago about inmate expenses prior to sentencing. Last year, after not getting desired results, they discussed filing suit against the state.
The group will meet again later this month; however, Lang said legal action may jam up the process and the group might again take a wait-and-see approach into next year’s session.
“You’re almost walking a tightrope on what to do,” he said.
Lang said funding in the jail-bed-allotment program is more significant for counties in which jails have closed, often because they were too expensive to run.
During the 2005 and 2006 legislative sessions, counties in which jails had closed — about 50 in total — got a $20,000 increase in the allotment. This year the judge-executive’s association asked for a $25,000-to-$40,000 increase for all counties, totaling $3.8- $4 million.
Lang said, with talk among legislators focusing on resolving the state-employee-pension issue at the end of the short session and with it not being a budget year, the issue got pushed back.
The current model for allotments is based on the number of beds a county had in a jail in 1983. Lang plans to adjust the numbers to reflect modern-day costs and distribute them to lawmakers during next year’s session.
“It’s a big cost that people — and even legislators — didn’t realize,” he said of jail expenses, especially for smaller counties. “So many counties are so poor and need this money right away.”
A side product of putting more emphasis on the state to fund local jails, Lang said, is it may help speed up the judicial process.
If the state were to cover the costs of an inmate prior to trial, one could hypothetically conclude that the courthouse wheels would turn more quickly to reduce the number of days an inmate is detained, Lang said. It’s something the counties currently pay for but feel they have no say over.
“It’s out of our hands,” Lang said. “We’re at the bottom of the criminal justice system.”

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