AUGUSTA, Maine - Gov. Paul LePage says he won't allocate any more money to Maine county jails - or appoint any new members to the Board of Corrections - until lawmakers devise a new system to run the jails.
Legislators have met on the issues surrounding the county jails and are trying to address the mess, but in the meantime, the system faces a shortfall of more than $2 million.
The Board of Corrections cannot meet and take any action without a quorum of the five-member board. And right now, there are only two authorized members. Gov. LePage says he will not nominate anyone else to the board, or support any additional funding for the county jails, until the whole system is overhauled.
"I am not going to. I will not take good money, good taxpayer money and throw it after bad," LePage says. "That system - I said it in 2011, I say it today - that system is made to fail. It cannot work."
LePage says that under the current system, the counties decide what the jails budgets should be and send the bills to the state. The lack of accountability, he says, has led to growing budgets, and rising paychecks for jail staff.
"We’ve gone from $62 million to $83 million in four years. Unbelievable!" he says. "Seven percent increases, 8 percent increases. They make more money now than people at Maine State Prison. It’s just crazy. It needs to get under control."
The governor says he does not care who controls the jails, but says the current system must be replaced with one that is accountable to all of the taxpayers. "I don’t care who runs it," he says. "I don’t care if it goes back to the counties and I don’t care if it is at the state. But you cannot have two bosses, it doesn’t work."
The top leaders of the Maine House and Senate met with the governor privately. House Speaker Mark Eves, a Democrat from North Berwick, says there's an immediate problem that has to be dealt with.
"The reality is the shortfall, currently, of about $2.5 million, we have to figure out a way to fund that," Eves says. "Otherwise, such as up in Aroostook, will be closing and it creates a lot of problems."
But Gov. LePage questions the finances. He says he believes there is already plenty of money in the jail system, tucked away in various accounts. Senate President Mike Thibodeau, a Republican from Winterport, says that the jails will have to prove their financial problems to the Legislature.
"First thing we got to do is figure out whether or not that $2.5 million is real dollars or not. This is going to take a little bit of work," Thibodeau says. "But we will figure out exactly what the situation is and move forward from there. We certainly all understand that the system we have right now with the Board of Corrections is not working."
Lawmakers say they are working on legislation that would both address a short term funding problem, and look at the future governance of county jails.
