Commissioners seek overcrowding solution

September 18, 2009

While the Valencia County Bureau of Elections continues to assess signatures collected in the correctional facility gross receipts tax petition campaign, commissioners are looking at other ways to ease overcrowding at the Valencia County Detention Center because the tax for the jail’s expansion isn’t yet in effect and might have to go onto a ballot first.

The number of inmates at the detention center fluctuates, but has been between 150 and 200 in recent months, according to commissioners. The jail was built to hold 98 inmates just 10 years ago.

“I don’t know how many are in there — 160? 180? It was built to house about 90,” Commissioner Don Holliday said. “We’re jeopardizing staff, just all kinds of people, prisoners themselves. We’re going to end up with lawsuits.”

The commission-approved tax now being subjected to citizen petitions and a possible election would be used to double the size of the detention center.

Holliday and Commissioner Georgia Otero-Kirkham haven’t released specifics but say they have some ideas for how to ease the overcrowding by continuing to transfer inmates from the detention center to facilities outside of the county.

It’s costing the county $80 a day per inmate who’s incarcerated outside of the county, Holliday said. That money is now coming out of the sheriff’s budget, which ties the hands of the sheriff, who needs to hire more deputies.

Commissioners had hoped to be able to use a surplus from the original correctional facility gross receipts tax passed by voters about 10 years ago to pay for the transfers, but later discovered that the tax money could be used only for construction activities at the detention center.

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