Jail fees on the rise?

Firm hired to determine daily fee for Oklahoma County inmates

Outgoing Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel is hiring a consulting firm to calculate how much inmates can be charged for their time in jail.

County commissioners Wednesday voted 2-1 to pay MGT of America Consulting LLC to perform a comprehensive cost analysis and recommend a daily incarceration rate.

The Florida-based company will be paid up to $20,000.

That cost already has caused grumbling around the courthouse, particularly since so little is collected anyway. Only $61,517 was collected from inmates last year after their release, records show. Only $516 was collected in January.

District Judge Ray C. Elliott sets the rate every year. He has scheduled a hearing Monday on the issue.

The current rate is $32 a day.

The daily incarceration rate is based most years on the total operating costs of the jail and the average number of inmates there per day.

The sheriff’s office initially asked last year for a rate of $48.05. The judge became upset last year after concluding the sheriff’s office had made improper calculations to come up with that rate.

The judge found the total operating costs had been inflated by so-called indirect costs that were improper. He also said the total operating costs had not been reduced by how much the sheriff makes from inmate phone use and from commissary sales.

The state auditor confirmed those findings in a special audit in October. The sheriff’s office chose to use a U.S. Justice Department cost sheet for detention services to calculate the rate but had not followed instructions, the audit found.

The sheriff’s office redid the paperwork more than once last year because of the judge’s concern and, in the end, asked for a daily incarceration rate of $40.04.

The judge refused. At a hearing in March, he instead set the rate at how much the sheriff charged the state Corrections Department to hold up to 196 felons at the jail.

The county commissioners in May stopped renting cells to the Corrections Department to ease jail overcrowding.

Whetsel is retiring March 1.