County commission questions proposal to shift inmate medical expenses from sheriff's budget

A proposal to shift the cost of providing inmate medical services from the sheriff’s department’s budget to the county’s came under some criticism Tuesday.

The Sheriff’s department, like all other county departments, has been asked to cut its 2014-2015 budget by 2 percent.

One of the ways the sheriff plans to do that is by shifting the cost of providing inmate medical services from his budget to the county’s budget.

The issue of inmate medical expenses is one the county commission and many local sheriff’s have discussed in the past – it’s a difficult line item because the sheriff never knows in advance how much he’ll need.

County officials pointed out that that the cost-shifting plan won’t actually save money, and will likely add to the overall budget because it would require the Clerk’s office to hire a new employee who has some background in the inmate medical process.

Marcia Johnson added that by keeping the inmate medical in the sheriff’s budget the county can better keep costs under control because if the sheriff runs out of money for the line item he has to come to the county for additional funding.

If the county had control of that budget they could see the expenses sky-rocket.

Commissioners said they will address the issue at their budget workshops, but many of them did say they would prefer to keep the expense with the sheriff.

Commissioner Pinki Jackel asked that the budget office provide a list of any proposed cost shifting so the commission can see if it is actually cutting the budget this year or just shifting money from one place to another. 

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