Ohio correctional facilities face financial turmoil

Alec Slovenec

4/11/18

    With the rise in inmate populations over the last few years, correctional facilities have been facing financial turmoil at the local, state and federal levels, leaving law enforcers stumped on how to meet ends meet. Portage County is no exception.

    David Doak has been sheriff of the Portage County Jail since 2009 has seen the jail’s state funding fluctuate unpredictably. Doak says that in 2009 shortly after he took office, the county jail had its state funding cut dramatically.

    “It had an impact on people,” says Doak. “We were able to keep our head above water and have recovered some since then, but when I look at what’s coming down the road, it’s very unpredictable what’s going to happen off in the future here.”

    Doak says that the jail’s greatest expense is its staff, which he estimated makes up roughly three-fourths of the jail’s expenses. Doak says that because of the cuts in funding, several staff members at the county jail have seen their pay decrease.

    “The folks here made some concessions, even the administrative staff made some concessions,” says Doak. “I personally took a bit of a pay cut for a couple of years in order to make ends meet.”

    Much of the reason behind the financial strain has been from the overcrowding of the Portage County Jail. According to the Portage County Sheriff’s Office Annual Report, in 2017, female population was on average 19 inmates over-capacitated on any given day.

    After four years of bureaucratic setbacks, the Portage County jail recently approved of an expansion to its facilities.

    “Nothing moves fast in the government,” says Doak.

    Overcrowding is not unique to the local jails. Ohio State prisons have been combatting overcrowding as well, and some of their efforts to reduce state prison populations have trickled down to hurt local-level correctional facilities. Ohio legislation has established diversion programs, which relocate nonviolent prison inmates from state prisons to county jails.

    This program is for nonviolent felons sentenced to less than a year in prison, and is only available in the 10 most populous counties in Ohio. Portage County is one of them.

    “This will relieve the burden on the state by 10s of millions of dollars annually,” says Legislative Aide Travis Ricketts. “But in order to offset the costs of local governments, we’ve increased their local funds.”

    According to the Greenbook for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the state will increase funding for local jails by roughly $18 million, a 46 percent increase from its funds in 2017. Even with the extra funds, the state is lifting its burden of inmates and leaving it to Ohio counties to deal with, and Doak is skeptical that it will be enough to make a difference.

    “I’m scratching my head wondering where the counties are going to come up with the funding for that,” says Doak in regards to the increase in inmates. “We have people beating on their chest that are running for higher political office, talking about what they’re doing for the opioid problems and all that, and rehabilitation, and I don’t know where the money’s going to come from.”

    Federal prisons have also been hit with loss in capital. On March 16, President Trump released his budget for 2018, entitled “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again.” It featured funding cuts to various government programs, perhaps most notably a $1 billion cut to federal prison construction.

    “Do me a favor and send him my name, and tell him we need a big piece of that,” says Doak.

    Trump did not cut back on all funds to federal prisons, however. His 2018 budget included an $80 million increase towards existing prisons to “reduce high security Federal inmate overcrowding” and $113 million towards modernizing outdated prisons. 

    In order to accommodate the extra inmates transferred from state prisons to local jails, Portage County is expanding its jail. This addition will increase the 34-bed area for female inmates to 132 beds, and will cost the county $20 million. The project will be funded by an increase in Portage County’s sales tax.

     “The state has made it very clear that they are not going to provide space in prisons for low-level felony 4 and 5 drug offenders,” says Portage County Chief Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci. “So that leaves the counties. And we have had to face that burden by raising taxes and building more county jail space.”

     Sheriff Doak claims he and his fellow staff members, despite challenges, are determined to maintain the Portage County Jail.

     “We’re here 24/7. We live in this place,” says Doak. “The maintenance fees are attached to that. The personnel fees, the cost of food, medication and everything else. That’s a lot of expense. So anytime you have an increase in population, those numbers go up. And the funding goes down. And that’s not working out for us.