Portsmouth pays $500K for jail space it's not using

PORTSMOUTH

The city is under a signed agreement to guarantee 250 inmates at the regional jail. It pays a rate for that number, regardless of whether the beds are used.

Right now, many are going unused because the Portsmouth Sheriff's Office is sending over fewer inmates from its city jail. The result: Half a million dollars' worth of regional bed space has been wasted in the past year, on local taxpayers' dime.

The situation has also cost the Hampton Roads Regional Jail tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue it would have received had those inmates been there.

That has prompted officials from the facilities' other member cities to suggest Portsmouth should cover the difference. That figure, which grows daily, was pegged at $73,000 in early December by Portsmouth City Manager Kenneth Chandler.

The matter has arisen during a time of declining inmate populations in general, and against the backdrop of a study by the regional jail authority into the needs of its members: Portsmouth, Norfolk, Hampton and Newport News.

"We just don't need 250 beds anymore," Col. John Gomoke of the Portsmouth Sheriff's Office said of the regional jail. He says the situation is not costing local taxpayers more money.

"But we can see what we can do about increasing the number to the regional jail," he said Tuesday.

Representatives from the regional jail's other member cities raised the issue in December and expect to address it more directly at their meeting this month. One recourse would be to send a letter declaring Portsmouth in default of the terms of its 1995 service agreement, but that has not happened yet.

The member cities, each which also has a jail, are under a signed agreement to guarantee a certain number of inmates at the regional complex. Portsmouth, which receives a discounted rate because it hosts the jail, is paying $3.5 million this fiscal year for its 250 beds.

The other cities have continued to meet or nearly meet their guaranteed capacity, even as they experience population declines of their own. The regional jail builds its budget with the assumption that those spaces will be filled.

Norfolk's jail population has fallen from around 1,900 to 1,400 over the past five years, Sheriff Bob McCabe said. However, the jail still sent an average of 249 inmates daily to the regional facility last fiscal year and was on a similar pace this year through November, according to jail records.

Norfolk, like Portsmouth, has guaranteed 250 beds.

"We're paying for them, so we might as well send them over there," McCabe said. "Why Portsmouth isn't filling those beds up, I'm not sure. I can't answer that. But they're certainly not getting, I guess, the maximum benefit of the regional jail."

Portsmouth had consistently met its guaranteed capacity year after year until November 2010, when the number fell sharply. Between then and November 2011, it averaged 211 inmates, according to the jail's statistics.

The number plummeted about four months after the U.S. Marshals Service stopped sending federal inmates to the Portsmouth City Jail because of security concerns following an inmate's escape in transit. That added to a general decline in the city's jail population, according to numbers from the Virginia Compensation Board.

The city jail is now holding, on average, slightly more than 400 inmates, down from around 600 in summer 2006, according to the state data.

Newport News Sheriff Gabe Morgan said he probably doesn't need all the regional beds his city has guaranteed, either, but he fills the quota nonetheless. He pointed to the cities' service agreement, which says each member agreed to commit inmates up to its guaranteed capacity, not just to pay for the beds.

Providing the inmates brings a partial reimbursement from the state that helps pay for the jail. Those payments, which range from $4 to $12 per day per inmate, are factored into the jail's budget. The city receives that money if the inmates stay at the city jail.

Morgan said the regional jail's members should be allowed to recoup whatever revenue was not generated by inmates Portsmouth was obligated to provide but didn't.

"I'm not for putting any more of my money - when I say 'my money,' I take it personal - the city's money to cover somebody else," he said.

A reduction in inmates at the regional jail also means less ancillary revenue from what they would spend on commissary and phone services, which is also factored into the operating budget, said Jimmy Gray, a Hampton assistant city manager.

David Simons, superintendent of the regional jail, said the facility might realize some savings in food and medical services from Portsmouth's lower inmate population there, but that has not been studied.

The Hampton Roads Regional Jail was built in the 1990s to relieve crowding and defray rising medical costs at local city jails. The member jurisdictions now send it their inmates who have the most serious physical and mental health concerns. That contributes to a higher average daily cost of holding an inmate there than at the Portsmouth City Jail.

Gomoke said most expenses at the city jail are fixed, so each additional inmate there does not necessarily add much in expenses. Morgan, without analyzing Portsmouth's numbers, said that is true in some cases but not all.

Discussions to demolish Portsmouth's city jail are expected to heat up as construction finishes this summer and fall on a new courts complex away from the city's downtown waterfront. That will free up space for redevelopment, leaving the city jail, which city officials have long wanted to displace.

City leaders probably will consider two main scenarios: construction of a new city jail or expansion of the regional facility to take all of Portsmouth's inmates.

Gomoke said the drop in inmates sent to the regional jail was not manufactured to inflate the city jail's numbers in advance of that decision.

Dave Forster, 757-446-2627, dave.forster@pilotonline.com