The Maine Board of Corrections appears to be in a state of disarray.
The financial director left in December and the executive director is resigning at the end of January. On top of that, a board member announced her resignation this week, leaving just two members remaining. And at an emergency meeting Monday, the board voted to allow Franklin County Jail to revert to county control. This could signal the demise of a 2008 jail consolidation effort.
The emergency board meeting was called to address the county jails' $2.5 million dollar budget shortfall for fiscal year 2015. One jail that's taking the financial hit especially hard is the Aroostook County Jail, with an expected $700,000 shortfall. Sheriff Darrell Crandall says the problem is that funding has been capped at 2008 levels, while the number of inmates has nearly doubled.
"Some of that has to do with the fact that we're taking on prisoners from other jails, like Penobscot, and others that are facing a significant overcrowding problem," he says.
Crandall says the issues trace back to consolidation, where some jails closed and others converted into 72-hour holding facilities that funnel inmates into more more modern, efficient jails. The Board of Corrections was created to oversee it all, and the goal was to control costs. But Crandall says the state has failed to meet its obligation to cover additional expenses.
"We have been in a deficit scenario since the end of the first full year of the function of the BOC and it's gotten exponentially worse each year," he says.
Crandall says the state would be better off if counties took back control of their jails. At Monday's meeting, the Board of Corrections unanimously approved such a measure for Franklin County, allowing it to revert its jail from a 72-hour holding facility back to a full-service jail. Sheriff Scott Nichols says he hopes to have it ready within 6 weeks.
"The entire Board of Corrections is under crisis at this point due to overcrowding in certain jails and pods being shut down in other jails due to lack of funding," he says. "It only made sense to open us back so we can retrieve not only our inmates but perhaps take in inmates from other areas as well."
The move has support from other jail officials, including Mark Westrum, administrator for Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset. But Westrum says it's only a Band-Aid on the larger financial issues facing the jail system. And complicating the matter is that the Board of Corrections has nearly dissolved, with the departure of both staff and board members.
"So from the perspective of seeing the system unravel, I think we're there," Westrum says. "And I think a lot of it will depend on a supplemental budget request, and a lot of it will depend on whether the new members of the Legislature who need to be brought up to speed will understand the significance of the issues."
The executive director of the Board of Corrections is resigning from his post on Jan. 28 — just one year after he took the job. Ryan Thornell says the Board of Corrections is fundamentally flawed because there's no direct line of authority.
"I think all signs are pointing to the Board of Corrections can't exist as it is right now because there is an inherent dysfunction to it," he says. "When you have an element of state government and an element of county government, you know, there are disagreements, and — specific to the Board of Corrections — there's no way to solve those disagreements without going to court with one another."
The future of the board — and the jail system as a whole — will depend on actions by Gov. Paul LePage, who has the authority to appoint new members, as well as the Legislature, which can enact emergency legislation to deal with the crisis.
