Editorial: State must restart payments to counties housing low-level felons

The Indiana Department of Correction has apparently run out of money to pay counties to house inmates convicted of low-level felonies and other state inmates who would otherwise be serving time in Indiana prisons.

According to a story reported by Niki Kelly, editor-in-chief of the Indiana Capital Chronicle, county jails haven’t received payments in months, even though they have continued to care for prisoners for whom the state is actually responsible.

The problem is nonsensical and should be solved immediately.

The issue stems from a 2013 overhaul of the criminal justice system that was meant in part to reduce the need for the state to continue building prisons by housing more state inmates in county jails. The changes were also intended to keep lower-level felons—who have shorter sentences—in their communities where they could participate in programs designed to help them reenter society, find jobs and live law-abiding lives.

The law called for the Indiana Department of Correction to pay counties for housing those inmates, who were—despite where they are jailed—part of the state system.

For the fiscal year that ends on June 30, the Legislature allocated $34 million to pay counties for two groups of offenders, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle story. The state said it spent $34.6 million in the last fiscal year on those services.

But this year, the state has already spent $34 million—with months to go in the fiscal year.

An Indiana Department of Correction spokeswoman told Kelly the agency is working with the State Budget Agency on options for paying counties. But no solution is in place yet.

“It’s very disappointing,” Tippecanoe County Sheriff Robert Goldsmith, who is also president of the Indiana Sheriffs’ Association, told Kelly.

Kelly’s story—which published on the Indiana Capital Chronicle website on Wednesday, a few hours before IBJ went to press—appears to be the first public airing of the problem. So details at this point are sparse.

But it seems this is a problem that started during Gov. Eric Holcomb’s administration and has continued under Gov. Mike Braun. It’s time to fix it.

Of course, programs—especially ones that involve unpredictable situations like crime and punishment—can run out of money. But there doesn’t appear to be a good reason why the State Budget Agency could not have acted by now to allocate more money to pay counties.

Lawmakers have been in session for weeks. If the Holcomb or Braun administrations needed legislative approval for the funding—and it’s not clear they do—that could have happened already. But it hasn’t.

Meanwhile, Braun has been pushing to reduce local government tax revenue overall—and has chastised local leaders who have said they would likely need to cut services if the governor’s proposals become law.

Housing prisoners and fighting crime are just the types of jobs local governments need money to do, especially when they aren’t getting paid as they should for their services.•

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