Maine
Opinion: Maine’s county jail funding system is broken
You may not realize it, but Kennebec County provides housing and living costs for approximately 2,136 people each year (as of 2024). Many are in and out in a day or so. But it’s not the Western movie hoosegow where a drunk is sobered up or the occasional federal bad guy is warehoused.
What’s this? The Kennebec County Correctional Facility or, for short, the County Jail. The average occupancy is 140 people, and their average stay is 69 days. The jail consumes about 49% of the county’s budget. Statewide, county jails hold a daily average attendance of 1,400.
Nobody wants to think about these people and this amount of money. But there are several reasons why we will have to do it. Not only is the amount large, it is budgeted in a nontransparent way. It’s shown on your property tax bill as a small amount due the counties — usually 8% or 10% of a town’s budget. Worse still, it’s not decided until May or June of each year; many towns have already held their town meetings.
Most years, this has been a small problem — increases have been held to small amounts. In recent years, however, matters have changed. We’ve fallen behind on a number of fronts.
The jail was authorized for 80 employees, or half the county’s staff, in the 2024-25 budget. They work 8¼-hour shifts, and one 16-hour shift is typical each week. They are not merely burly guards. The jail often cannot recruit enough people. Until a substantial pay raise this year, they earned about what they could get at any fast food place.
For fiscal 2025-26, the overall budget for medical care was the county’s largest at $3.2 million, bringing the total to $13 million. Prescription drug costs are one major cause and, in turn, a major reason why the tax rate rose. The counties are squeezed between towns and cities that raise the taxes and the state.
How did we get into this mess? By not talking about it. It was resolved in the past by small groups of people in small rooms. It needed very little attention so long as the increases were modest.
They’re not modest anymore. We owe this to the opioid epidemic — both the number of inmates every year and in particular the cost of inmates’ treatment for drug and drug-related problems.
Drug treatment costs are higher than most realize. The Legislature has mandated that all counties provide drug-assisted treatment but hasn’t appropriated enough funding. The jail must maintain a medical staff on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the jail resembles a clinic — with an average stay of 69 days.
The Kennebec County facility presently holds eight people charged with murder; their average stay is 1½ years. The state prosecutes murders. But surely a method can be found that allocates some of these costs to the state. What should be done with these costs?
There is legitimate debate over the logical division point between local and state responsibilities. We understand the Department of Corrections has its own problems. But we believe the Legislature is unfairly burdening the counties — and hence the property tax base.
The time has come to form a commission on state-local relations in law enforcement. We’re living with a system inherited from late medieval England, and it’s broken. It needs to be examined, root and branch, and tough questions asked: Do we need sheriffs in our smaller counties? Who will do local patrols, and do we need them? Do we need county jails, or should we merge them into a state-run system? Who should pay the costs of drug treatment?
These issues have been debated before. But the longer we paper them over, the more costly it will become.
Many Maine municipalities will open cooling centers this week with the National Weather Service issuing a variety of heat advisories covering the next few days.
The Maine DEP also issued an air quality alert for Wednesday with ground-level ozone expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
All of York County, interior Cumberland and Androscoggin counties, and the southern half of Oxford County will fall under an extreme heat warning from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Friday.
The warning calls for “dangerously hot conditions” that could feature heat index values of up to 110 degrees, with overnight lows only expected to fall into the 70s, according to the weather service’s office in Gray.
The rest of the state — save northern Aroostook, Piscataquis and Somerset counties — falls under a heat advisory from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday. However, the weather service has also placed much of the state under an extreme heat watch for Thursday.
Heat index values, which measure how hot it feels to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature, are expected to reach up to 104 degrees during the heat advisory period, the weather service warns. They could reach 110 degrees Thursday, when the extreme heat watch is in effect.
Northern Oxford and Franklin counties, and central Somerset County, can expect a heat index value of up to 99 degrees Wednesday, according to the weather service.
The weather service advises people to drink plenty of fluids, stay in air-conditioned rooms when possible, avoid extended periods in the sun and check up on relatives and neighbors. It also warns not to leave young children and pets in unattended vehicles, as “car interiors will reach lethal temperatures in a matter of minutes.”
Cooling Centers
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has also issued an air quality alert from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Wednesday along the coast from Kittery to Acadia National Park. The agency warns that ground-level ozone concentrations are expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Ozone levels may reach “moderate levels” further inland, according to the Maine DEP, including in all of Androscoggin and Kennebec counties, as well as parts of Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Penobscot, Sagadahoc, Waldo, Washington and York counties.
Elevated ozone levels can pose a risk to children, older adults and people suffering from respiratory or heart diseases, according to the Maine DEP. Anyone exerting themselves outdoors may also experience health effects, which could include coughing, shortness of breath, throat irritation and mild chest pain.
Ozone levels were already climbing in southern New England on Tuesday, according to the Maine DEP, and winds are expected to bring those conditions to Maine on Wednesday.
The Maine DEP recommends that vulnerable populations avoid strenuous outdoor activities, keep windows closed, and circulate indoor air with fans or air conditioners. Those with asthma are also advised to keep quick-relief medication handy.
Particle pollution levels are also expected to be moderate across the state on Wednesday due to wildfire smoke, the Maine DEP said in its announcement Tuesday. Wildfires in Colorado, which have claimed the lives of three firefighters, had burned nearly 90,000 acres as of Tuesday, according to the Denver Post.
Maine could face up to $50 million in penalties next year due to errors in its payments for federal food benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Newly released data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture find that Maine’s error rate last year was nearly 11%, the bulk of which were overpayments. That’s in line with the U.S. average. But starting in October of next year, states with error rates above 6% must cover a portion of the SNAP benefits.
Anna Korsen, executive director of Full Plates, Full Potential, said the overpayments aren’t fraud — they’re human error. She said this new cost-shifting policy enacted last year under the Trump administration further complicates the SNAP application process.
“Instead, we could make this program more accessible and more efficient,” Korsen said. “And that would reduce the number of errors and also ensure that Mainers who are eligible for SNAP have access to it.”
She’s urging Congress to delay or reverse the policy under the farm bill that’s currently under consideration.
Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services said it’s taking steps to reduce the error rate, including modernizing its systems and hiring an additional 40 eligibility specialists.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
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