County funding will ease jail overcrowding
Thursday, July 8, 2010, 12:21am
The Valencia County Commission last night unanimously agreed to pay the 13th Judicial District Court $50,000 so local courts can continue to offer alternative sentencing that help some offenders stay out of the county jail.
The funding will allow the district and magistrate courts to continue contract services provided by a probation officer who monitors roughly 75 offenders who might otherwise be in jail. The money will also pay for things like ankle bracelets.
The State of New Mexico cut the funding for the program for this fiscal year.
Had Valencia County not funded it, 36 to 40 of the offenders in the program would likely have ended up spending time in the Valencia County Detention Center, which is so overcrowded that this month nearly 30 inmates are being housed in Santa Fe and Cibola counties.
“The ‘no vacancy’ light is on,” said Commission Chairman Don Holliday.
According to Derek Williams, the jail’s warden, the county pays $85 a day to house the inmates in Santa Fe County and nearly $65 a day to house them in Cibola County. In-house, the cost per day is a minimum of $30.
Adding 36 to 40 inmates to the number already housed outside of Valencia County could cost the county much more than the $50,000 it’ll spend on program.
“There is an actual cost-savings to the county,” Commissioner Pedro Rael said.
Commissioner Ron Gentry, skeptical of committing money to the program, asked the commission to immediately identify how the county will fund the program.
The county was expected to hire four detention officers in August. The commission ultimately decided to fund the program by postponing the hiring of two of those four officers.
The City of Belen, Village of Bosque Farms, Village of Los Lunas and Town of Peralta all use the county jail to house their inmates.
Holliday recommended amending the county’s joint powers agreements with each of the county’s municipalities.
“Hit them up for a couple more bucks a day,” he said, an idea included in the motion approved by the commission.
Holliday said the municipalities should pay an additional $10,000 each.
Williams thought the county might have trouble collecting the additional $10,000 per municipality, noting that the City of Belen is six months behind on its payments to the county jail, owing nearly $17,000.
