Volusia to reimburse 13 inmates

County improperly withheld stimulus payments

Volusia County is reimbursing about a dozen people incarcerated in the county jail after withholding money from their federal stimulus checks in violation of Florida statute.

Councilwoman Heather Post brought the issue to the attention of the county manager and internal auditor in the fall.

“It was discovered that an inmate had money withheld from a federal stimulus payment — which is statutorily allowed — to repay the jail for outstanding medical debt incurred for services provided to this inmate during a previous incarceration,” county spokesman Kevin Captain explained. “However, because it occurred over three years ago, it fell outside the statutorily allowed time frame.”

Post told The News-Journal she routinely receives requests from the public to help resolve issues.

“In this case, a Volusia County Branch Jail inmate reached out to me for assistance, saying that money had been removed from his inmate banking account in violation of state statute and that his inquiries and requests for resolution over many months had been ignored,” she wrote in an email.

Post said she inquired about the matter and was told the money had been withdrawn to pay the medial lien from 2015, in violation of the Florida statute which caps the liens at three years.

“Although obviously simply an oversight in jail operations... We can’t be illegally taking money from people we have placed in jail,” Post said.

She told The News-Journal that she pointed out the person should be reimbursed and procedures should be corrected, then asked staff to investigate whether this had happened to others.

“I was advised there were too many transactions to look at to audit, so county finance staff advised they checked into a select category of inmate accounts with deposits of greater than $600 over the last two years and found 12 where the county had withdrawn monies in violation and they were working to rectify those,” she said.

Captain confirmed that 12 additional individuals were identified and were being refunded.

The county’s internal auditor Jonathan Edwards revealed at the Jan. 6 Volusia County meeting that inmate trust fund activities were the highest-ranked priority in his 2022 audit plan.

Edwards anticipates the audit will take more than 400 hours.