Board Meeting June 24, 2009

Inmates housed at the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio will be required to pay for their stay, as well as pay an initial booking fee, following action taken during Wednesday�s meeting of the Corrections Commission of Northwest Ohio.

Board members unanimously authorized the executive director to enter into a contract with Intellitech that will serve as the collection agency of a Pay-for-Stay program at CCNO. The per diem rate of $67.77 will be charged for each day that an offender is incarcerated.

Also a $100 booking fee will be charged to each sentenced offender each time they are booked into CCNO. If an offender has been allowed to complete their sentence on weekends, each weekend the offender will be charged the $100 booking fee.

Under the agreement, an Intellitech employee will be located at CCNO to operate the program. Costs will be $750 to $1,500 per month based on hours needed. This cost will be deducted from the gross monthly revenues generated prior to the percentage distribution to CCNO.

It was noted that the Lucas County Jail uses Intellitech and collected some $358,000 in 2008. The Lucas County jail books about 25,000 inmates per year. In comparison, CCNO is expected to book about 8,000 inmates in 2009.

Jim Dennis, CCNO Executive Director, said the agreement with Intellitech will be for three years. He added that inmates participating in electronic monitoring, GPS and work release will continue to pay fees directly to CCNO and will not be charged by Intellitech.

In other business, officials trimmed another $204,653 from the 2009 budget in an effort to reduce operating costs. The overall 2009 budget was reduced 4.8 percent from $16,568,278 to $15,781,114 due to budget cuts made in the past few months. The reduction also reduced the per diem rate from $71.15 to $67.77.

The overall cost reduction plan amounts to a savings of $143,615 for Defiance County; $144,042 for Fulton County; $102,613 for Henry County; $518,381 for Lucas County; $139,699 for Williams County and $499,143 for the City of Toledo.

Mr. Dennis said CCNO staff continues to look at ways to reduce operating costs and make recommendations for potential savings. It was noted that the recent reductions were due to decreased insurance costs as well as a reduction in the inmate population. But Mr. Dennis voiced concern as costs could increase if the inmate population climbs especially in 2010.

In his operational report, Mr. Dennis reported Wednesday�s population at 533 or 83 percent. He noted the male population is down by about 75 per day although the female population has peaked to a high of 119. Mr. Dennis said the inmate population averaged 580 in the past three years in comparison to an average of 550 so far in 2009.

Mr. Dennis noted that the TAMAR program � Trauma Addiction Mental Health and Recovery � will discontinue as of June 30 due to the expiration of mental health grant funding. The program had been an integrated treatment approach designed for high risk incarcerated women who were mentally ill, substance abusing and are victims of trauma. He did say that CCNO staff are seeking technical assistance to develop a re-entry program for offenders upon release back into the community by linking them with available outside agencies.

Board members approved a 10-cent increase in local collect calls (Bryan, Defiance, Jewell or Ridgeville Corners) made on inmate telephones effective June 30. The current surcharge rate of $2.75 remains the same while the rate per minute will increase from 10 to 20 cents per minute for local calls only. A 10-minute local call will increase by $1.

Board members met in executive session for 29 minutes to discuss pending contract negotiations. No action was taken.