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Attorney responds to column on jail fees
Editor's Note: Below is a letter written in response to a June 14 column by CN Managing Editor Mark Brasfield titled: "Blytheville residents pay twice for jail."
I felt compelled to respond to your June 14, 2012 opinion editorial, wherein you opined that Blytheville residents are unfairly paying twice for the jail.
I am not necessarily writing this for publication, but just to express my concern to you that your opinion appears to be expressed without concern for any basis in fact. You may publish it if you desire, but that is not my purpose.
My concern is that, although your column is clearly labeled "opinion," a lot of people probably don't understand that you are just expressing your opinion, and that you are simply expressing your individual opinion. Some people might tend to believe that, since you write other articles in the newspaper that are supposedly researched and based on facts, that the same standard might apply to your opinion editorial. That seems to me to be unfair.
I am writing this letter as an individual and not in any official capacity. However, I do have the benefit of some knowledge of the jail fee situation over the past several years.
When a proposed new jail was being discussed in 1994 and 1995, the County Jail was primarily being used for inmates involved in felony charges. In fact, one of the jail tax campaign ads stated, "Our present jail is authorized to house only 87 inmates. Today we average over 95 prisoners per day; almost all are felons." The Blytheville Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution, dated Aug. 10, 1995, in favor of the jail tax, and that resolution included a recital, which states that "the security of our community and the proper and sure incarceration of felons is critical to our society ..."
When the new County Jail was built, Blytheville was operating its own city jail and housing their own misdemeanor inmates. When the city began experiencing overcrowding in their city jail facility, they started sending some of their city misdemeanor inmates to the county, which eventually prompted the county to begin assessing what was initially a small charge to the city (as the county was authorized by state law to do), to offset some of the cost of housing the city inmates.
Eventually, the city of Blytheville decided to close its jail and "save" that annual expense of over $200,000 for the city. The city of Blytheville thought they could just "dump" that burden on the county, which escalated the problem.
As we know, the situation resulted in litigation, which was decided by the court in favor of the county. The court specifically ruled against the city on their argument about any credit or entitlement because of the tax for the operation of the jail, and the court specifically found that the city was responsible for paying the county for the cost of housing the city's inmates. That court decision was initially appealed by the city to the Arkansas Supreme Court, but upon advice of the Arkansas Municipal League, the appeal was dismissed (probably because they did not want to set a state-wide precedent, which would have been the effect of the appellate decision).
You stated that the wording on the ballot concerning the one-quarter cent tax, for the purpose of operating and maintaining the jail, implies that the tax would cover the total expenses of the operation of the jail. That certainly is not the case. That is not what the ballot proposal says, and that was certainly not the intent of the proposal.
When the jail tax was being discussed, other counties in the state had recently passed a sales tax to build new jails and later discovered that they were having problems funding the operation of their new jails. Consultants recommended that the county include a provision in the ballot for a permanent one-quarter cent tax to be applied toward the costs of operating and maintaining the jail. It was never anticipated that this one-quarter cent tax would be sufficient to fund the entire operation of the jail.
It is difficult to understand your argument that the city of Blytheville is paying this jail tax. Yes, taxes are generated from sales which occur at businesses within the city, just as those taxes are generated by sales at all other businesses within the county. Obviously, a great number of individuals who live outside the city, within the county, and outside the state, make purchases within the city of Blytheville. Residents of Gosnell, Dell, Manila, Leachville, Osceola and other towns in the county make purchases in Blytheville. It just doesn't seem fair or reasonable to say that the city is paying this tax.
You stated that other cities (Birdsong, Leachville, Bassett, Burdette, Dell, Dyess, Marie, Victoria, and Wilson) have no sales tax. But the jail tax is a county-wide tax, not a city tax. Some of these towns do have businesses, and, again, their residents shop in Blytheville and Osceola.
You mentioned that Osceola pays the jail tax while operating its own facility. In fact, the city of Osceola passed its own tax several years ago to build its own City Jail to take care of its own Misdemeanor inmates. Osceola's annual budget for the operation of their city jail facility is approximately $400,000. It is fair to suggest that the city of Osceola should bear the burden of its own misdemeanor inmates, but the city of Blytheville should not be expected to do the same?
I previously mentioned that the County Jail was primarily designed to incarcerate felony inmates. That was the primary purpose of the jail when it was built, but at the present time, out of an average daily jail inmate population of approximately 130 or more inmates, approximately 60 percent of that number are felony inmates, and the rest are misdemeanor inmates. The city of Blytheville inmates make up approximately 26 percent of the jail population.
A big part of the problem is that most of the city misdemeanor inmates in the County Jail are really serving time because they can't or won't pay the fines that they owe the city. They are not really being incarcerated for punishment of the actual offense. I'm sure you can talk to the chief of police to verify that is the case (not to imply that he has any control over that issue). I will leave the debate of the issue of inability to pay fines (assessed regardless of ability to pay) to someone else or to another day.
It is not my purpose to criticize you. Again, I just wanted to express my concern that your opinion was not fairly presented and might unfairly cause others to agree with you.