Dear Editor:
There are several factors that went into the decision to house the inmates in Moffat County. Let’s start with the most obvious one. Revenues have steadily declined for the county since the State government declared war on the oil and gas industry. Over the last three budget years the Commissioners and the budget director have shown us the County budget and what the income versus the spending is; income is declining and will continue to decline.
The Sheriff’s Office has looked at many ways of trimming the budget to help accommodate the declining revenue. When I took office in 2015, I cut several positions in the patrol division that I thought were no longer needed; those being a dedicated traffic deputy for County Road 5 and the investigator position. I also cut a full time position in the jail. I restructured and reassigned positions, using attrition to accomplish the task. Then in 2020 with the declining revenue for the county, we had to eliminate another patrol deputy position.
In 2016, we moved into the newly built Justice Center which included a new jail. The design of the jail dictated a minimal amount of staff needed to operate the jail. We added a full time position to operate the control room during the day. This helped for a little while, but we soon found that an additional detention deputy position was needed. In order to help supplement the cost of these positions, we signed a contract with the United States Marshal’s Office to house pre-trial inmates from the overcrowded jail in Mesa County. Our average daily inmate population prior to the U.S. Marshal’s inmates averaged around 12. With the Marshal inmates there were times we had 18 inmates; (referring back to the boom days of the early 2000’s and the old jail at times had 30+ inmates)
In 2019, the inmate population started to decline. The average daily population of our inmates decreased and we started to get more US Marshal inmates. By 2020 we were split; holding half US Marshal inmates and half local inmates. Then the world changed when COVID hit and everything changed. Law enforcement gave summons’ in lieu of making an arrest, when warranted, to lessen the chance of COVID coming into the jails.
In 2021, we are averaging five inmates per day. As of this day, Sept. 7, we have six inmates with two of those being US Marshal inmates. The US Marshals do not expect our count from them to increase.
The decline in jail arrest numbers are also attributed to legislation. Last year the legislation reclassified all the misdemeanor charges moving a lot of them to petty offenses. This year, as we speak, there is a committee looking at reclassifying all the felony charges, again making more law violations less jailable. Last year the legislation introduced SB-62 and SB-273 both directed at the county jails. If SB-62 would have passed we would have only been allowed to arrest on class 1, 2, and 3 felonies and the other mandatory arrest such as domestic violence. We are expecting another bill this next session to be introduced along those same lines.
I do not see this trend ending any time soon until there is a major change in legislation. With the front range legislators and the A.C.L.U. running the bills through and getting them put into law, this trend will continue!
That brings us back to our local issue of closing the jail and having Moffat County hold our inmates. The jail has a budget of a little over $1 million dollars. If Moffat County were to hold 10 inmates a day, for 365 days, that would cost us approximately $220,000 per year. Our Office would still be responsible for the transportation of inmates from Moffat County to Meeker if they have a mandatory in-person court appearance. If anything good came out of COVID, it was that the Courts started using video to facilitate many of the appearances which lessens our need to transport inmates. We will keep four full-time positions from the jail to help with transportation, court security, records and extraditions. That means a loss of five full-time and 2 part-time positions. I take this very seriously and with a heavy heart that there will be any lost positions. I have spoken to Sheriff Hume and he will consider taking the people who lost their positions. With the four positions and the transportation costs, the total cost to the county would be around $500K to $600K per year depending on how many inmates Moffat County would actually hold. That is almost half of what it costs to run the jail now.
As a fiscally conservative elected official, I would not be doing my fiduciary responsibility of not looking at the costs of running this office. I cannot justify to the taxpayer spending $1 million dollars when we could do it for almost half the amount and with literally no change in service to the citizens.
Sheriff Anthony Mazzola
Rio Blanco County
