That means the Davis Jail lost more than $3 million in 2007 and $15 million since 1995, Davis County Sheriff Bud Cox told members of the Bountiful Breakfast Exchange Club last week.
An announcement was made last week that the U.S. Marshal Service will soon begin paying the full $70 for about 200 federal inmates housed at the jail, but the stateís rate remains less than half of what it takes to feed, cloth and house an inmate, and the jail must take the stateís inmates.
Cox shared a brief history of the Jail Reimbursement Program with Exchangites, tell-ing them that every year the Utah Sheriffís Association ìsuggestsî that the core rate be raised, and each year the Legislature ignores the suggestion.
What it amounts to is the county is subsidizing the state, Cox said. County jails are required to take the state inmates, even at the low reimbursement rate. The jail takes federal contract inmates to fill empty beds with the philosophy that some money is better than none.
Cox said Davis Countyís agreement in bonding for the jail expansion was that the Sheriffís Office would fill it with contract inmates to offset a tax increase until the time came that Davis County in-mates filled the facility, which is estimated to be four to five years out, he said.
In 1988, the circuit courts were combined with the district courts and, Cox said, some legislators use that as an excuse for not reimbursing counties at a better rate.
Cox offered Exchangites a chart which showed that in 1995, the state reimbursed the county jails at $51 per day per prisoner.
Through the years, that has varied, with the high being $52.56 in 1996, and the low being the current reimbursement at $27.10.
mwilliams@davisclipper.com
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