Inmate calls generate more than $200K a year

More than $200,000 are generated annually by inmate telephone calls at Ulster County Jail.

The purchase earlier this year of computer tablets for use by inmates at the Ulster County Jail is one example of how the Sheriff’s Office spends the more than $200,000 generated every year when inmates at the county jail call the outside world.

According to Finance Commissioner Burt Gulnick, between 2014 and 2017, the Sheriff’s Office took in roughly $876,104 in commissions, paid to the Sheriff’s Office by Inmate Calling Solutions, LLC, the Texas-based company that provides secure telephone service at the jail.

The revenues are generated when inmates at the jail place calls to individuals outside the facility. Inmates can place collect calls from the jail or family members can put money on an inmate’s telephone account to pay for the calls.

Under the terms of the county’s agreement with Inmate Calling Solutions, an inmate pays 22-cents per minute per phone call. Add to that processing fees that can range from between $3 and $5.95, and local, county, state and federal taxes and regulatory fees and billing fees, and the cost of a 10-minute telephone call can cost upwards of $10.

The county receives the 55 percent of the gross income generated by those calls (less the administrative fees and taxes) with a guaranteed monthly minimum income to the jail of $13,500.

The contract assumes a daily population of roughly 320 inmates.

“We average around $220,000 per year in revenue,” said Jail Warden Jon Becker in an email detailing how the monies are spent. “The revenue received offsets the jail’s budget.”

Gulnick said the county jail budget for 2018 is $22.3 million and calls for $224,974 in telephone commission revenues.

Unlike revenues generated through the operation of an inmate commissary, which must be spent for the inmates benefit, there is no restriction on how a jail spends commissions generated through telephone calls, according to the state Commission on Corrections, which oversees county jails across the state.

Becker said the department generally spends the money the same way every year, with the lion’s share going to routine costs within the Correction’s Department.

Among the items the department spends the funds on each year, he said, is replacing two vehicles in the Correction’s Department fleet; purchasing new equipment, ranging from body armor to ammunition and badges; floor buffers and K-9 supplies; paying for the cost of the department’s copier lease; and for lab fees for testing officers and printing services and new keys locks and employee swipe cards, among the other items.

A fraction of those monies — less than $10,000 according to Becker’s accounting — is spent on services for the inmates at the jail.

Becker said the jail pays a $7,500 annual stipend for a part-time chaplain to provide religious services at the jail and about $1,950 for inmate cable television service.

This year, Inmate Calling Solutions deducted $7,500 from the county’s commissions to cover the cost of the tablets purchased in March.

“This is all no cost to the taxpayer,” Becker said of the expenses covered by the commissions. “If not available, (it) would be added to the regular jail budget.”

The cost of inmate telephone calls has created a controversy recently, with inmate advocates calling the cost of the calls exorbitant and say it hits hardest the poorest, in some instances forcing them to choose between paying bills and talking to their loved ones.

Unlike in state prisons, where inmates can spend years behind bars, inmates in the Ulster County Jail are individuals who have been charged with a crime but have not yet been convicted or are serving a jail sentence of less than one year.

Ulster County Public Defender Andrew Kossover, whose office represents individuals who cannot afford an attorney, said he doesn’t have a problem charging those inmates who can afford to pay for the calls, but thinks a program should be put in place to help the indigent remain in contact with their loved ones while in the county jail.

“If you believe that one of the goals of the criminal justice system is rehabilitation and successful re-entry into the community, it would seem appropriate at a minimum to enable affordable telephone and or video access between the detainee and close friends and family,” he said. “Being in jail is the loss of one’s freedom, but if the cost of communication results in isolating someone from the outside world, I would suspect that would reduce the chances of successful rehabilitation and re-entry.”