County officials continuing jail budget discussion, need for new model, possibility of ICE contract
Cascade County officials are continuing development of the sheriff’s office budget, which includes a broader discussion on how the jail should be funded.
During a July 1 budget meeting between the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office and Cascade County Commission, they discussed recent legislative changes to property taxes and the uncertainty that was creating going into the fiscal year that began that day.
Commissioner Joe Briggs said that the inflationary factor this year is 2.11 percent and commissioners can increase property taxes by up to that amount if they choose.
Local governments are restricted by state law in how much they can raise property taxes annually.
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Briggs said that the changes at the state level would likely cause homeowners to see their property taxes go down this year, but the recent Montana Renewables would probably drive down property values and since the county can mill as much as it did last year, they can’t guarantee that taxes for local property owners would go down.
“The overall bottom line to taxpayers is really up in the air,” Briggs said.
A state law change will lessen how much tax local governments can collect on industrial property, which has been a major portion of local government budgets for many years, but it will allow them to take up to a four percent inflationary factor rather than the current half of the average rate of inflation over the last three years.
Briggs said it will help small counties, but “it will hurt us.”
Based on the legislative tax changes and the current economic makeup of the county, Briggs said “it’s not going to be getting better.”
A legislative change will also require the county to recertify its public safety levy that was approved by voters in 2022.
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Briggs said the legislative tax changes also set a hard code of $400,00 and any property under that was taxed at a certain rate and anything over that had a higher tax rate.
But next year, that threshold will shift to the statewide median value of a home.
“What the hell is that,” Briggs said, when contrasting small counties to places like Bozeman.
Slaughter said he’s begun contract negotiations with the federal government and the U.S. Marshals had indicated Cascade County was up for a rate increase for their federal inmate holds.
Slaughter said there are interesting things at play with the federal contract and that they typically contract based on actual costs with a daily rate.
“We run an efficient jail at low cost,” Slaughter said and their daily cost per inmate is $82.50.
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He said they’ve started including actual depreciation of the jail facility in their cost calculation and he was optimistic that they’d be able to increase the federal daily rate to $135.
“We hold the most prisoners,” Slaughter said of federal holds, in part because Great Falls is a Con Air hub.
The current federal rate is $115.
Slaughter said during the July 1 meeting that the feds wanted to increase their contract by 40 inmates because they’ve been holding them in Wyoming and have to transport all over Montana.
For ICE holds, he predicted about six, based on what had been coming to the county jail so far under the Marshal contract.
Slaughter and commissioners also discussed the potential for an ICE contract during a May meeting, when Slaughter told commissioners they’ve previously held ICE holds under the Marshals contract and there haven’t been many ICE holds in the past.
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On June 24, there were five immigration holds in the Cascade County Adult Detention Center.
On July 17, there remained five, including three who were there in June.
Slaughter said he was in talks with ICE and had proposed a $150 daily rate for their holds since the county jail was the only facility in the state holding them.
He said he’d been told ICE was “about to start a massive operation in Montana.”
According to a late June New York Times report, ICE arrests have increased 364 percent in Montana since Trump took office, which equated to 30 arrests.
Slaughter said the southern border was largely closed down so now cartels are shifting to the northern border and Montana could see increased activity.
Slaughter said that with that combination of factors, “we’re probably going to see a massive uptick in those arrests coming” and if U.S. Border Patrol starts picking up people trying to illegally enter Montana through Canada, they’d likely be held at the Cascade County jail.
Slaughter said they were seeing fewer overdoses lately due to the southern border closure and Undersheriff Scott Van Dyken said the price of drugs had gone through the roof.
Slaughter said county officials sent what he called a “white paper” about jail operations to ICE, but “ICE detainees are highly unpredictable.”
As of July 17, Slaughter said they haven’t heard back from ICE.
Any contract with ICE would go before the county commission for approval, as the current Marshals contract did and an updated Marshals contract will also require commission approval. All of those discussions and votes would be held in public meetings.
Slaughter said that he can increase federal hold beds in the fall once the booking area remodel is complete and could likely increase by about 40 but that creates logistical problems.
Slaughter said they get about $4 million from the county and the rest of their operating expenses have to be covered by revenues.
“This revenue based jail facility is not sustainable,” Slaughter told county commissioners during their July 1 budget meeting.
Expenses are far outpacing revenues, Slaughter said, and he thinks he can make it work for a few more years, but he suggested starting a working group to develop a strategy for some other model.
One option could be cutting all the contract beds and becoming a very small county jail, only arresting locals and moving kitchen operations in-house.
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That would cut down on staff requirements and “take care of our own community.”
Slaughter said they’d always have to take some federal inmates since there’s a federal courthouse in town and through probation and parole, but it would be limited.
He said they could consider capping the jail and 215-220 inmates, but “we’re going to have to find money to make that happen.”
The county jail was heavily dependent on those revenue driving contracts and it’s a “tough thing to unwind.”
Longerm, they could retain a smaller number of employees more easily and it would be less stress on those employees and the facility.
“The revenue based model used to work,” but even with higher federal daily rates, expenses will continue to outpace revenues,” Slaughter said.
To commissioners, he asked, “what do you guys want?”
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Slaughter said contracts are great, but that it’s partly why expenses keep outpacing revenues.
Commissioner Joe Briggs said the county is holding a number of inmates who are the state’s responsibility and receiving no compensation.
Slaughter said they’re growing the government to keep up and there comes a tipping point where they can’t take care of their own community.
“None of us wants that,” Slaughter said, and the community needs to be involved in the conversation to understand the consequences if they don’t do hard things.
“Nobody wants to talk about detention,” Briggs said,”it’s out of sight, out of mind, get them away from me.”
Undersheriff Scott Van Dyken said that when the county attorney commits someone to the state hospital, they can’t bill Medicaid and the county pays $1,317 a day for those civil commits.
The county has been sending monthly invoices to the state for people who have been sentenced to state prison or the state hospital who remain waiting in the county jail.
Van Dyken said the state owes the county for those sentenced inmates but “they’ve never responded to me.”
“Imagine that,” Briggs said.
The Legislature passed a bill earlier this year requiring the state to reimburse local jails for holding inmates awaiting beds at the state mental hospital.
Gov. Greg Gianforte vetoed the bill and lawmakers overrode his veto this week.
Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki said that in practicality, the state might pay for those holds going forward, but probably won’t pay past bills.
In a June invoice to the state, county officials wrote that the state owed the county $150,449.70 for holding inmates that had been sentenced or ordered to the state hospital.
The county subtracted invoices from the state for mental health commits totalling $55,557.67, leaving an outstanding balance owed by the state to the county of $9,4892.03.
Other CCSO budget items discussed during the July 1 meeting included a line item for duty phones for deputies so they can take photos on those phones that upload directly to their records management system, cutting the need for expensive cameras and the issues they had with memory cards being damaged and having to come back to the office to upload photos to the system.
Slaughter said that the Legislature had passed a bill allowing for paid reserve deputies and he was working on a plan to use that option toward school safety.
The pay would be a flat rate set by commissioners and would not include benefits. He’d target retired law enforcement for that program.
He said he’s hoping to have more schools covered with qualified people through that program and was developing a plan to start with five reserve deputies in the current budget.
“It’s a far more cost effective way to do business and also way more coverage on keeping our schools safe,” he said.
Once he’s developed that plan, he said he’d bring it back to commissioners.
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Van Dyken said they have about 100 locks to replace in the jail, but it’s not planned this year because the budget is so tight.
CCSO started that project in 2019 but hasn’t had the funding to continue as it costs about $100,000 per pod.
Slaughter said they’re getting into larger pods and stations, increasing the cost.
It’s a risk management issue he said the county will have to balance.
Briggs said that once they figure out the right size of the facility, they can deal with the lock replacement project.
Van Dyken said that when they go to jail commanders conferences, other Montana jail officials get frustrated with Cascade County, because they maintain the lowest daily operational costs, followed by Yellowstone County.
The other communities say the state won’t increase the daily per diem until Cascade County’s daily costs increase.
Trista Besich, county finance director, said once they take facility depreciation into account, the daily operating costs will increase quickly.
She said they have to fix depreciation on some of the jail equipment to determine the overall facility depreciation costs.
Van Dyken said asbestos abatement had started at Indian Family Health for the new crisis diversion center being planned at that facility through grants, including one to Cascade County from the state.
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