FARMINGTON — Franklin County commissioners will continue to consult their attorney on the question of whether the Maine Board of Corrections can legally request an additional $100,000 in payments from the county, even though they aren’t facing legal action over nonpayment.
Commissioner Gary McGrane at Tuesday’s meeting wondered, however, if it’s premature to meet with the attorney, given the state Board of Corrections has not sued the county or threatened legal action.
The commissioners unanimously voted in August not to pay the first of two $50,000 additional payments requested for this fiscal year and continue to meet with their attorney over the matter.
A corrections board official said the board is not taking legal action against the county, but added the state board will further discuss Franklin County’s nonpayment, which makes some commissioners concerned legal action is still a possibility.
Commissioners Fred Hardy and Clyde Barker said Tuesday that they want to work through their attorney to assert their legal right to hold back on the money so the state doesn’t make a similar request in the future.
Franklin County Attorney Frank Underkuffler said he will follow whatever marching orders he gets from the commissioners, but said the commissioners could use him to find a legal foundation to prove not just that they could get away with not paying the money, but that not paying was the fair and correct thing to do. He said by proving they are doing the correct thing, the county could improve its standing with the corrections board.
Underkuffler said during discussions Tuesday that the board’s legal authority to request the money is “pretty thin” and later added that the county would be more receptive to the board’s request if there was not a controversial history between the two entities.
Ryan Thornell, executive director of the board, said Wednesday he anticipates the board will discuss the withheld payment at a Nov. 18 meeting, but so far they have not discussed the matter since their September meeting and are not seeking legal action to collect the money. Thornell said the two groups’ legal counsel continue to have discussions about the issue.
Over the past year, the sheriff led a protest against the board, and 800 county residents joined the Facebook page “Give Franklin County our jail back.”
“The problem is you’ve got this history,” said Underkuffler. “If it weren’t for the history, the right thing to do would be to give them this surplus.”
The Franklin County officials and state jail officials have been locked in a battle of wills for years after the Franklin County Detention Center was reduced to a 72-hour holding center as part of a 2008 statewide jail overhaul.
The overhaul unified all state jails under one system, capped the amount of money jails can raise in property taxes and promised to pay any needed money over the property tax caps. Under the system, Franklin County pays about $600,000 a year in annual fees to the Somerset County jail, where its inmates are held when they stay longer than three days.
However, after years of funding shortages and weak Board of Corrections authority under the 2008 system, the jail system was overhauled again this May by the Legislature, giving the board greater central authority and $1.2 million in emergency money. The board hopes the Legislature will have confidence in the new system and vote in the next biennial budget cycle to fully fund the jails for the first time.
Meantime, this fiscal year the board is facing a $1.2 million shortfall for the state’s jails, and Franklin County is among the jails seeing increased fees or reduced payments to offset the shortfall.
In correspondence with the county, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Black, who represents the board, previously wrote that the board decided to raise Franklin County’s payment this fiscal year from $630,576 to $730,576 after noting the county had been running an annual surplus of more than $100,000 a year.
“Faced once again with a projected budget deficit for (fiscal year) 2015, the board sought fair and equitable ways to address this looming problem,” Black wrote.
Underkuffler said the state is not considering the unexpected costs the county has been faced with under the new system, such as increased transportation costs after inmates were moved from where they were held down the street from the courthouse to 30 miles away.
Franklin County Sheriff Scott Nichols, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, said the state unfairly rejected a county request for $40,000 this summer when they needed to replace their inmate transportation van that was worn down from the thousands of miles it ran up shuttling inmates to court appearances.
“We have a lot of costs that have been pushed on us,” said Underkuffler. “We wouldn’t have these van and transportation expenses if not for the mission change.”
Commission Chairman Fred Hardy said Franklin County is unfairly being used as a resource to prop up the board. Underkuffler said running a budget in the black when other jails are in financial crisis has prompted the state to look to them for money.
“You might as well paint a bullseye on yourself,” he said.
Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252
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