Washington County ending deal to house Madison County detainees

FAYETTEVILLE — Citing overcrowding at the Washington County Detention Center, Sheriff Tim Helder has decided to end the county’s agreement to house detainees from Madison County.

Helder sent a letter dated Nov. 29 to Madison County Sheriff Rick Evans and Madison County Judge Frank Weaver giving them notice of Washington County’s decision to terminate the memorandum of understanding between the two counties. Chief Deputy Jay Cantrell told the Quorum Court’s Jail/Courts/ Law Enforcement Committee of the decision on Monday.

“Due to overcrowding in the Washington County Detention Center as well as our past two unfavorable Criminal Detention Review inspections, we have determined our best course of action is to reduce our population in a variety of ways,” Helder said in the letter. “One of those ways is to discontinue holding detainees for your county.”

According to the letter, the agreement between the two counties will end on Dec. 31, 2021.

Cantrell said the Detention Center has typically been holding from 33 to 36 detainees from Madison County. In a detailed breakdown of the Detention Center’s population for Dec. 1, the facility’s population reached 719 detainees. Of those 719 detainees, 33 were from Madison County.

The Detention Center has a design capacity of 710 beds. With legal requirements to keep different classifications of detainees separate, the jail has an operating capacity of about 560 to 570 detainees.

Cantrell said ending the agreement with Madison County may bring some relief to the detainee overcrowding problem, but not much.

“It may get us about two weeks,” Cantrell said after the meeting.

Cantrell said ending the

agreement means Madison County will no longer bring detainees to the Detention Center. Those who are being held now will remain in the Detention Center until arrangements are made to house them elsewhere.

Maj. Randall Denzer, who oversees the Detention Center, said ending the agreement with Madison County will have a negative impact on the county’s finances. Denzer said Madison County pays Washington County $73.81 per day to hold detainees and ending the agreement means Washington County will have a budget shortfall of $800,000 next year.

Also on Monday, the justices of the peace endorsed a pair of proposals to provide pay raises for all hourly employees of the county’s Road Department.

The Quorum Court” s Personnel Committee voted to send to the Finance and Budget Committee an ordinance to raise the pay of all Road Department employees currently making $17.99 per hour or less by $3 per hour. Employees currently making from $18 to $19.99 per hour would receive raises of $2 per hour. Employees currently making $20 or more per hour would receive raises of $1 per hour.

The ordinance setting out the raises calls for the county to appropriate about $501,324 from unappropriated reserves in the Road Fund to pay for the increases in the county’s 2022 budget.

The committee also forwarded to the Finance and Budget Committee a second ordinance that would give all hourly Road Department employees a $1 per hour raise. That ordinance would have the county appropriate about $227,642 from unappropriated reserves in the Road Fund to pay for the raises in 2022.

The Finance and Budget Committee is set to meet at 6 p.m. today in the Quorum Court meeting room at the County Courthouse.

Willie Leming, justice of the peace for district 13, sponsored the first ordinance.

Leming said the Road Department is losing employees to private businesses because of the low pay offered by the county. He said the Department has about 23 or 23 open positions now.

Lisa Ecke, justice of the peace for District 6 and committee chairman, said she had concerns about the legality of the proposal, saying the matter is within the purview of the county judge and other elected officials and that “there are things that are going on that other people don’t know about.”

Leming said the county needs to do something about the pay problem, not just talk about it.

“Let’s not talk about it for 10 years,” Leming said. “Let’s get it done.”

Robert Dennis, justice of the peace for District 10, sponsored the second ordinance.

Dennis said he has been working on addressing the problems of low pay and turnover in the Road Department for months but was unable to get an ordinance drafted during the budget process. Dennis said the money from the Department’s unappropriated reserve fund was originally budgeted for employee pay and then returned to the reserve when jobs were open and remained unfilled.

Maj. Randall Denzer, who oversees the Detention Center, said Madison County pays Washington County $73.81 per day to hold detainees and ending the agreement means Washington County will have a budget shortfall of $800,000 next year.