County, city at odds over jail rate

County rejects $600K offer, imposes daily rate for prisoners

Union County and El Dorado officials are at odds over what’s the most fair way to cover costs at the county jail, with county officials recently rejecting a flat monthly rate that also would have included funding to reimburse the county for some costs of upgrades to the facility.

The Union County Quorum Court met last week and reviewed the city of El Dorado’s inmate housing rate at the Union County Jail. The Quorum Court rejected an offer of $600,000 from the city to go toward jail upgrades and a yearly flat rate of $175,000, instead sticking to a rate of $40 per day per inmate.

The issue came up after the El Dorado City Council had voted earlier this month to pay Union County a flat monthly rate of $14,500 along with a one-time contribution of $600,000 to cover about half of the estimated costs of upgrades that are currently being installed at the jail.

The council agreed to present a funding request for the $600,000 to the El Dorado Works Board, which administers the city’s one-cent sales tax dedicated to economic development and quality of life improvements. The EWB tabled the request after a tie vote from the board’s four present members, with plans to revisit the topic at their next meeting.

Members of the Quorum Court’s jail subcommittee said city officials misunderstood them at a jail committee meeting that was held March 4; they say no agreement was made since the proposal hadn’t been voted on by the full Quorum Court.

“That should never have been before the City Council before the full Quorum Court voted on it,” said District 5 Justice of the Peace Carolyn Jones.

The city initially proposed a flat yearly rate of $162,000, or $13,500 per month, for 10 years. Per state law, Union County Sheriff Ricky Roberts is not permitted to agree to a contract longer than his term in office, so that offer was rejected.

The jail committee countered the city’s proposal with an offer for a yearly flat rate of $200,000, or about $16,667 per month, for three years. The city countered that offer with a proposal for a flat yearly rate of $175,000, or about $14,584 per month, for three years.

Included in the final offer from the city was an agreement to pay half the costs of the jail upgrades, up to $600,000. The city also would have reduced the jail’s water and sewer rate by 10 percent and eliminated a $25 clean-out daily fee.

“We did not even submit those suggestions, that’s what they did,” said District 9 JP Benny Vestal. “I would actually prefer to stay with the $40 rate, at least for one year, and see before we offer an across the board thing [that] at least we’ll know how our costs will fit in. Because the last few years, we’ve been operating in the red.”

At the start of 2019, El Dorado began paying the county $40 per inmate per day; all other municipalities in Union County pay the same rate.

The jail committee approved the city’s offer, agreeing to present that proposal to the full Quorum Court at the next monthly meeting. But before that could happen, city officials presented the proposal to the City Council at the March 7, where they unanimously approved the agreement.

City Council finance committee members then took a funding request for the $600,000 to the El Dorado Works Board, where they asked board members to take the funds from the construction/ maintenance and non-designated categories of the El Dorado Works tax plan, which make up 26 percent of the plan.

Ward 2 Council Member Vance Williamson said at the EWB meeting that providing the $600,000 for the jail upgrades would get the city back into the county’s “good graces.”

Williamson said the city budgeted $360,000 for jail fees for 2019, borrowing from other budgets to get the full amount. He and Ward 4 Council Member Dianne Hammond noted that city reserve coffers have taken a hit in the past few years due to city revenues flatlining.

But some EWB members said the funding request did not fit with the purpose of the El Dorado Works tax, which was implemented and advertised to voters as an economic and community development fund that would finance projects to improve the quality of life for El Dorado residents.

Williamson noted that the City Council has the final say on funding requests brought before the EWB. The EWB voted on the request, with the vote ending in a tie; at that point, EWB members agreed to table the matter until Craig Mobley, the only EWB member absent at the meeting, could also weigh in.

Quorum Court members echoed the concerns of some of the EWB members on whether it was appropriate to use money from that tax on jail upgrades.

“I don’t think, in my opinion, that the intent of that tax (El Dorado Works tax) was to spend the money on the jail. I don’t think we should be in the position of putting that economic development board, the El Dorado Works Board, into the position of approving $600,000 for the jail when I don’t think that was the intent,” District 1 JP Mike Dumas said. “The jail was never mentioned in the discussions of encouraging the voters to vote for it.”

Roberts showed the Quorum Court a comparison of the city’s actual payments from 2018, which totaled $162,000 after the county agreed to the flat yearly rate, versus what they would have owed had they paid the same $40 per inmate per day rate as the rest of the municipalities in the county, which totaled $333,980.

“[City officials] put in there that jail rates were $20 to $50. If anybody had a $20 jail rate, they had some other way – a sales tax or something like that – to subsidize it. Nobody can run a jail for $20,” District 7 JP Johnny Burson, using an ordinance recently passed in Pulaski County that established a first day jail fee of $178 with a

subsequent daily rate of $52 as an example.

“We’re not out of line with our rates. We haven’t tried to take advantage of anybody. We never dreamed we’d be cast in a negative light like that,” he continued, referencing a previous News-Times report where a city official was quoted as saying they believed the city was being taken advantage of. “The city has talked about getting a committee after this, ongoing, to have a jail committee countywide

and we’ve got no objection to it. … But the county is ultimately going to be the one that has the say. But if somebody’s got an idea that will help us run this jail better or make it more fair all the way across Union County, we’re for it. But in the meantime, we’re trying to work with the city.”

For comparison, Chief Deputy Charlie Phillips of the Union County Sheriff’s Office, said the United States Marshals Service pays the county $50 per inmate per day. He said in some cases, $40 per day won’t cover all of an inmate’s needs.

“You’ve got certain ones that are on a certain diet, some of them that need certain medication,” he said.

The city is only responsible for paying for the inmates the EPD arrests until felony charges are filed against them or until they are convicted of a misdemeanor offense; after that, the county is responsible for them, Phillips said.

Union County Prosecutor Jeffrey Rogers said each case has to be assessed before charges are filed, so there is no average time from the arrest until charges are

filed. Rogers is employed by the state of Arkansas, not the city of El Dorado or Union County.

“I’ve said over and over the best way to do this thing is to do the daily rate. If you’ve got somebody in jail, you pay; if you don’t, you save money, and that’s the fairest way to do it,” Burson said. “At the end of the year, nobody’s left holding the bag; nobody paid too much or too little.”

The Quorum Court moved to reject the city’s offer of $600,000 and continue billing them at $40 per day per inmate. The JPs voted unanimously in favor, with Jones abstaining.

Roberts said he has spoken with El Dorado Police Chief Kenny Hickman about ways the city can lower their jail bills, such as citing people instead of arresting them for minor crimes.

“When I was the police chief out there, we had to do the same thing and say ‘this person goes,’ or

‘this person doesn’t go,’” Roberts said. “It’s just an accountability of there’s some people that do need to come to jail, don’t get me wrong, but then there’s other people that shoplift and maybe its their first offense, do you really need them to go to jail?”

The El Dorado City Council met later Thursday. There, Williamson moved to appropriate $600,000 from the city reserves as part of the negotiations with the county. The appropriation was unanimously approved, aside from Ward 2 Council Member Judy Ward, who was absent.

Williamson was not able to be reached by press

time Sunday.