Prison Inmate Work Program Battle Continues

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – State inmates mowing grass or doing other jobs for counties across the state could soon vanish.

The August 1st deadline to end the Joint State County Work Program is fast approaching.

City and county leaders in the 20 to 25 counties impacted are pleading with state leaders to intervene.

In order for that to happen, a special session of the legislature would have to be called by Governor Phil Bryant.

“The legislature is probably not going to be in session between now and August 1, and so I don’t know that I have a crystal ball which says this is how this is going to ultimately end. The commissioner certainly has the legislative authority and has for many, many years to put inmates in these programs,” explained Lt. Governor Tate Reeves.

The local governments say they would have to raise taxes if there are no inmates to work because they would have to hire more employees, losing $23 million.

The program would save the state about $3 million. Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher has hinted at using the money to help give prison corrections officers a pay raise. They are the lowest paid in the country at a little more than $24,000 a year.

During this year’s session, lawmakers passed a number of reforms to significantly reduce the prison population. In turn, the corrections budget was cut. Despite being one of the largest in the state.

In the inmate worker program, the state pays counties $20 a day per inmate and medical bills.

“When I came in the total cost of the department of corrections was $311 million. Over the next two years it grew from $311 million to $356 million. It was growing at a rate that was simply not sustainable,” said Reeves.

Fisher offered to let the inmates stay in county jails, if the state no longer had to pay $20 per day.

Sheriff’s rejected the idea, saying it’s too expensive. Many counties took out loans to pay for new jails, specifically to house state inmates.

This political and costly battle will likely make it to the state Capital next in 2016.

“I think we need to look at the system in aggregate, both the state system and the local county jails, in aggregate, because we’ve got some counties that are having a hard time housing the inmates that they have in their own county, in the size of the jails they have. And so, maybe there are ways we can have join county partnerships,” said Reeves.

Unless a special session is called to change the commissioner’s authority, county’s will be left holding a big bill. Setting the stage for a local leaders blaming higher taxes and fewer services on state politicians before voters go to the polls this fall.

Reeves says he has met with sheriff’s from across the state this week.

He says he’ll continue to monitor the situation and is not in favor of taxes being raised at the state or county level to fix the issue.