BELFAST – “Let the counties run the jails like they have for 188 years.”

That’s Rep. Paul Davis’ short pitch for ending a much shorter and contentious period of state control. The sentiment is captured in a bill he introduced last month.

LD 186, “An Act to Reverse Jail Consolidation,” would dissolve the Board of Corrections created during the statewide consolidation six years ago and return authority over local jails to county officials.

Asked more about why this should happen, the Republican legislator from Sangerville said simply, “It hasn’t worked.”

He’s not alone in thinking so. The struggles of Maine’s unified corrections system are well documented. For local jails, it boils down to not having enough money and not having the authority to do anything about it.

On Monday, the Maine Sheriff’s Association issued a statement in support of Davis’ bill that called the State Board of Corrections “a fatally flawed experiment.”

“This issue is of significant importance to Maine’s sixteen county Sheriffs,” the statement read. “We want the governor, the legislature and the people of Maine to know that we are ready to roll up our sleeves and work with the legislature and the governor to get this done in a way that is reasonable, expeditious and most importantly fair to the Maine taxpayer.”

County jails and state prisons were merged under the Baldacci administration in an effort to save money. Decisions previously hashed out by jail administrators and county commissioners became the authority of a joint Board of Corrections in Augusta. As an incentive to cede control, the state froze county payments into the unified system at 2008 levels.

In actual dollars, forever.

“The state was supposed to pick up the rest of it as it went forward,” said Davis. ”But funding hasn’t kept up.” 

In Waldo County this hasn’t mattered much, but it’s an unusual case. The old jail was converted to a re-entry center that costs less than the $2.8 million the county pays into the system. That amount was based on the old jail, but today inmates who would have gone there are boarded out to Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset.

Waldo County Sheriff Jeffrey Trafton said it’s these larger facilities that have taken a hit under consolidation. Because they serve multiple counties, they depend on additional money coming from the state. By all accounts that revenue stream has flatlined.

“That’s why the county jail system is in cirsis,” said Waldo County Sheriff Jeffrey Trafton. “It’s obvious after all these years that the state is not going to come through.” 

Trafton said 15 of 16 sheriff’s in the Association voted to support LD 186. He was among them.

If it’s approved, he said, undoing the consolidation should be fairly straightforward.

“The physically property and all that stuff never reverted to the state,” he said. “None of that has to be reversed. It’s basically doing away with the Board of Corrections and we’ll all go back to running the jails ourselves.”

If the BOC were dissolved, Trafton said Waldo County would likely continue to operate a re-entry center and board inmates at Two Bridges. If that arrangement continued, he said, taxpayers here would see little change.

“It should be almost no effect, at least initially,” he said. “As long as we can keep things status quo, it shouldn’t be a big hit for Waldo County. We work hard to keep the budget within that $2.8 million.”

LD 186 arrives at a time when the Board of Corrections is facing its own internal crisis. Waldo County Commissioner Amy Fowler resigned from the board in mid-January leaving the five-member group unable to make quorum. Ryan Thornell, the board’s executive director left on Jan. 28.

[Speaking on Tuesday, after this article was published, Fowler said she resigned from the BOC out of a similar feeling to that expressed by Davis, Trafton and the Sheriff’s Association. “For all the good intentions, I guess it just finally got to the point where you had to know when to abandon ship,” she said. Fowler said she supports the thought behind LD 186 but believes the bill “still needs a lot of work,” particularly on the finances and how much will come from the state.]

Davis’ bill is still in the early stages, but unlike a previous bill with the same goal, it may have momentum on its side.

“Four years ago, the Sheriff’s Association opposed repeal,” he said. “Now they almost unanimously support it.”

Contact Ethan Andrews at: news@penbaypilot.com