Leflore County is close to reaching a $48,000 deal with a consultant to lead accreditation efforts at its jail, although the sheriff would be responsible for day-to-day operations.
Consultant Ed Hargett, Sheriff Ricky Banks and Board Attorney Joyce Chiles were to meet today to iron out problems with a proposed contract.
The revised document would be emailed to the Board of Supervisors for review, and Board President Robert Collins would then sign off on it, according to an agreement the board reached during a special called meeting Monday.
Supervisors agreed to the same procedure for a contract with the Mississippi Department of Corrections that allows the county to use several areas, mainly the administration building and kitchen, at the adjacent Delta Correctional Facility for free in exchange for maintenance.
The county takes over the jail from Corrections Corporation of America on Wednesday.
CCA, a private Nashville, Tenn.-based company, ended its contract to run Delta Correctional Facility, a state prison, on Jan. 15 because it wasn’t profitable. CCA’s contract to run the jail — which it has done since 2004 — was extended through today.
On Monday, the Board of Supervisors approved hiring 28 jailers, almost all of whom previously worked for CCA.
The sheriff said standards have changed greatly since the county ran its own jail at the courthouse. Also, the city of Greenwood has closed its municipal jail and contracts with the county to hold its inmates. The county has jail contracts with Indianola and Moorhead as well and holds women prisoners for Carroll County.
Banks said he and County Administrator Sam Abraham have discussed renegotiating those contracts to increase the rates municipalities pay.
The sheriff said Hargett is needed because of his expertise on American Correctional Association accreditation. He said Hargett will also help the county stay within a budget of $35 per inmate per day. That amount is dictated in Hargett’s proposed contract.
But the contract also stated that Hargett would be in charge of operating the jail. That led to confusion about what Hargett’s role would be: manager or consultant?
Hargett, a former superintendent at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, told the board Monday that he had initially proposed operating the jail for the county for $44 per inmate per day.
That rate was rejected as too expensive, and an alternative was presented whereby Hargett’s company, Corrections Management Services, would be paid $48,000 per year to consult on accreditation issues.
But the original management contract was used as the basis for the consulting contract and wasn’t changed completely, he said.
Hargett said he could have a new contract ready by today.
Although Hargett isn’t going to be managing the facility or have liability for what goes on, he does have responsibility to keep costs under $35 per inmate per day. Doing so will require a census of about 120 inmates, he said.
That means the jail’s budget would be about $1.5 million per year.
The jail had 117 inmates on Monday and had slightly more than 120 over the weekend, Banks said.
Additionally, the county needs to do about $1 million in repairs to the jail before it can be accredited, Hargett said. Items needing work include an obsolete control board that dates from the jail’s inception in 1995 as well as cameras, intercoms and locks.
Supervisor Wayne Self asked first why county employees couldn’t do the accreditation work and then when the county could take over from Hargett. His contract expires after one year.
Abraham said that might not be the best idea.
Self said he should have listened to advice eight years ago for the county to build a new jail of its own at the same time it built the new sheriff’s office on Baldwin Road.
“But you would have spent $8 million to $10 million,” Abraham responded.
“We’re going to spend that before this is over with,” Self predicted.
“It ain’t even going to be close,” Abraham said.
Self and Robert Moore asked questions about the contents of Hargett’s contract, both saying it need to be in order before the board signed off.
“The last thing I want us to do is get stuck with one of these loose ends out there, and certainly the difference between operating and consulting could jeopardize us pretty good. ... I think that we need to be clear about what we’re hiring you to do,” Moore said.
Hargett said over the past 20 years, 30-to-50-cell lockups at courthouses have given way to what are essentially small prisons.
“Sheriff Banks is probably the exception: He probably knows more about corrections than the average sheriff, but as a general rule sheriffs are concerned with law enforcement and policing and arresting folks and community crime,” Hargett said. “And jails have gotten so big, the corrections side of things, they don’t have the local expertise to deal with — to comply with — all the standards that you have to comply with for operations. And that’s where I come in.”
Hargett said the ACA has more than 400 accreditation standards covering booking, security, programs, food service, health care, release and anything else that happens to an inmate. He has plans for each of those areas and said, for example, that he’s been able to develop menus to feed inmates at less than $2 per day elsewhere.
Hargett said the county could probably save more than what it’s paying him on liability insurance if it gets accredited. However, Abraham said the county’s liability insurance is increasing by about $15,000 as a result of the county running the jail. That’s less than one-third of what Hargett’s being paid.
Also, Hargett said most judges toss inmate lawsuits upon seeing that a jail is accredited and following procedures.
He said he recommended that the county continue to push for converting the shuttered Delta Correctional Facility into a regional correctional facility run by the county but housing state inmates. The county could borrow the $1 million needed for repairs through a bond issue and then use money generated by the regional facility to pay back the bond. That scenario would bring back jobs and be a moneymaker, Hargett said.
Hargett said the county would need the state to deed over Delta Correctional to do that.
State Sen. Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona, has proposed a bill that would make Delta Correctional a regional jail. But Chris Epps, commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, has said he opposes that move.
Epps said the state has 4,000 empty beds and doesn’t need the extra space. He has said the main beneficiary of creating a regional jail would be Banks, who would get $15,600 extra pay under state law.
MDOC and the county did reach an agreement on using two buildings at Delta Correctional following a Jan. 12 meeting between Banks, Max Cathey, MDOC director of property and warehousing, and Dell Lemley, MDOC director of fiscal affairs.
They agreed to let Leflore County use the:
nAdministration area, primarily the visitation area;
nSegregation area, which consists of 22 separate rooms and the outside exercise area;
nKitchen;
nLaundry; and
nMaintenance shop.
The county will pay utilities but no rent. In exchange, the county will maintain emergency generators and an acceptable outside appearance and “maintain the entire facility in a safe, functional manner.”
Abraham said he had some concerns about that final clause because he didn’t know what it would entail.
Banks said his understanding was that the county was only to keep the grass cut and the place clean. But Chiles said the language specifying the “entire facility” could leave the county on the hook for something such as storm damage to the prison’s roof.
Chiles, Banks and Hargett were to clarify those points while revising the contract today.
Supervisor Phil Wolfe noted that the contract allows either side to rescind it with 90 days notice and that the county had no other immediate options. He also said the prison has never stopped leaking since it was built.
The county also bought a $3,000 time clock for use in the jail Monday.
• Contact Charlie Smith at 581-7235 or csmith@gwcommonwealth.com.
