Short-term offender law hits counties the hardest

An unpopular law that forces Minnesota counties to spend about $4 million a year to house state prisoners in their jails is on the verge of being repealed.

The short-term offender law, as it's known, has required counties since 2003 to house felons who have 180 days or less remaining to serve on their sentences. The arrangement angers counties because the state's reimbursement -- this year, $10 or less a day -- falls far short of the full cost of meals, security, medical bills and other county expenses. Counties have to close the gap by assessing property taxpayers for the difference.

"We're talking huge numbers," said state Rep. Dave Olin, DFL-Thief River Falls. The $8 million the state has budgeted to move short-term offenders back to prisons shows why counties have complained about the existing law, said Olin, chief sponsor of legislation to repeal the law.

State officials "wanted considerably more money than they were paying the counties, which was in itself a kick in the face for the counties," he said.

Much of the burden falls on Hennepin County, which expects to pay an estimated $1.5 million for short-term offenders this year, said Tom Merkel, director of community corrections and rehabilitation. The county had 61 short-term inmates in its workhouse this spring.

In Washington County, which budgets a cost of $124 a day per inmate, the $10 state reimbursement for short-term offenders doesn't even pay for meals, said Sheriff Bill Hutton. The expense has been a painful pill to swallow when commissioners had to cut $3.2 million in other costs -- including jobs and a popular 4-H youth development program -- from this year's budget after Gov. Tim Pawlenty throttled back state aid to counties.

Counties complain bitterly that state and federal mandates consume most of their budgets -- in Washington County, it's an estimated 80 percent -- which leaves little money to spend on services such as public safety, roads and libraries without raising taxes.

In metro counties, the short-term offender requirement often tops the list of complaints.

Like the Olin legislation, Pawlenty's proposed budget called for a return of short-term offenders to state prisons.

"The governor's listening, I'll tell you that," said Shari Burt, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Corrections. "The reimbursement has never been equal to the actual cost. The governor recognized this was a burden placed on the local entities."

Burt said county jails averaged 360 short-term offenders a day in 2008. That's the most ever and substantially more than the daily average of 233 in 2004.

One of the angry sheriffs is Don Gudmundson of Dakota County. "My first view was they just so cavalierly dumped prisoners in local county jails that had been their responsibility since 1858," he said. "That is flat-out wrong." He said the short-term offender law is the "poster child for the state to put its problems on the county."

When the arrangement began six years ago, Gudmundson said, sheriffs were told to expect five state prisoners a day. But Dakota County has as many as 16 a day costing about $400,000 annually.

In Washington County, which had 12 short-term offenders in jail recently, Hutton said he's concerned about mixing state prisoners convicted of felonies with city and county prisoners doing time for gross misdemeanors such as assaults or drunken driving, or awaiting court appearances.

"These aren't just DUI guys," Hutton said of the short-term offenders. "Our audit of criminal history shows these are folks who should be in prison. It's very taxing on our resources in the jail."

Sgt. Roger Heinen, a longtime Washington County corrections officer, said state prison inmates tend to teach lesser violators how to make weapons, hide contraband and brew "hooch," an alcoholic drink.

"Because they're pretty much more a harder inmate, a sophisticated inmate, they can be harder to manage," said Heinen. Danger to officers and fellow inmates can be lessened through a "classification" system that segregates troublesome inmates in certain portions of the 228-bed jail, he said. Many of the short-term offenders live in the general inmate quarters as long as they behave, said Jail Commander Chuck Yetter.

In one high-profile case in the Sherburne County jail in 2006, an inmate who had been transferred from the state's super-max prison in Oak Park Heights beat a 28-year-old Elk River man to death with a handrail. The victim, Carl Moyle, was jailed for having no vehicle insurance. His assailant, Bruce Christenson of Hibbing, had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic but jail officials said they didn't know that.

Hospitality business

Merkel, in Hennepin County, said short-term offenders assigned to counties tend to commit crimes more often after their release because jails and workhouses don't have rehabilitation programs that prisons do. In a three-year span in Hennepin County, he said, 44 percent of short-term offenders drifted into crime again, compared with 32 percent of inmates from state prisons.

The short-term offender law costs Dakota County in other ways, Gudmundson said, because the 264-bed jail is often full. That means the county has to rent beds in other counties for new, incoming inmates -- state or local -- at $55 a day or more.

"You've got to start shopping around like Motel 6," said Jim Franklin, executive director of the Minnesota Sheriffs' Association. "You're in the hospitality business trying to find rooms for these people."

The proposed repeal, part of a larger public safety finance bill, remained intact Friday on the eve of tougher legislative scrutiny over budget and taxes.

Kevin Giles • 612-673-4432