Over the years there has been no shortage of “unfunded mandates,” where federal and/or state agencies have dictated to local governments what they must do, usually under threat of very severe penalty for disobedience, without actually providing any money with which to do it.
The rural garbage collection system comes immediately to mind.
A little over 25 years ago, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and, by default, the state Department of Environmental Quality told all of the counties in Mississippi that they had to start providing garbage service for folks out in the boondocks.
Initially, there was little guidance on how the counties were supposed to pay for it. The mandate was simple and to the point: Get ’er done.
Since that time, our state lawmakers have authorized counties to adopt special tax assessments and to collect fees, and provided assorted other means to help finance the operations of this very costly service. Counties also are able to file suit in court and to withhold the automobile tags of rural residents, including the landlords of those residents, delinquent in paying their garbage bill.
Nearly three decades after being required to provide the service, small rural counties like Tallahatchie continue to struggle under the burden of making garbage collection ends meet, and solid waste remains a political stench as well as a drain on the budget.
One way that some counties are able to hold down the cost of the garbage system is by making good use of available state inmates, who ride the garbage trucks and help to empty the roadside carts.
Tallahatchie County utilizes four inmates from the Sumner Work Center to help staff the Solid Waste Department, saving local taxpayers an estimated $80,000 to $100,000 per year in labor, retirement and insurance costs the county would have to pay if employing other workers to do that job.
Soon, though, if a plan announced April 30 by new Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher comes to fruition, those inmates may not be as readily available and the county could be up the proverbial creek.
Fisher said the MDOC plans to end the Joint State County Work Program (JSCWP) beginning Aug. 1. Under that program, Tallahatchie and 29 other counties house state inmates at county jail facilities under an arrangement with MDOC.
After the private prison at Tutwiler came online, in 2001 county officials successfully sought a contract with MDOC to utilize the former county jail at Sumner, with a few upgrades, for the JSCWP.
The state pays counties $20 per day for each inmate housed in these facilities. In the case of the Sumner Work Center, which is approved for 34 state inmates, that means up to a quarter-million dollars per year at full capacity.
As Tallahatchie County Sheriff William Brewer told the Board of Supervisors Monday in Charleston, however, the Sumner facility is rarely full. As of Monday, he noted, there were 19 state prisoners there.
When annualized, that still means some $140,000 in state payments. But the value of the state prisoners at Sumner does not end at the per diem. In fact, far from it.
Fisher said the state can save $3.2 million per year by moving state inmates from county facilities into 17 MDOC-owned and operated community work centers, which have available beds.
The $3.2 million is not small potatoes, by any means, but it does represent less than 1 percent of the state agency’s overall budget.
So what is the cost-benefit?
“They’re talking about $3 million. It’s going to cost these counties no telling what,” Brewer said. “It’s going to cost Tallahatchie County alone some $1 million each year in lost money and lost hours of labor. This is the stupidest thing. I just don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Work center inmates fill a wide range of roles in this county, from assisting the Tallahatchie County Solid Waste and Road departments — where some prisoners have put their mechanic skills to valuable use; picking up roadside litter; helping with interior custodial duties and performing upkeep of the exterior and grounds of both county courthouses; mowing about 25 lawns, including those on fire department and voting pre-cinct sites, as well as other public properties; and performing maintenance of county facilities, school buildings, fire houses, libraries and more.
“It’s unreal how much benefit we get from them,” Brewer noted. “It’s going to be hard for us to absorb that.”
Several years ago, Sumner Work Center inmates provided the lion’s share of labor to renovate the former Supervalu grocery in Charleston into what now is a county office building, housing local offices for a half-dozen state and county agencies.
Without the work center inmates, “many of those jobs would have had to be hired out,” noted Brewer.
Fisher counters by saying that the counties can continue to utilize state inmate labor by driving to one of the community work centers — the nearest to us are at Greenwood and Lambert — and checking out some inmates for the day.
Brewer said the county used that process before having a work center of its own.
“We might get five inmates one day, the next day we might be able to get 10, and the next day we might not be able to get any,” he said. “By the time you drive somewhere and pick them up, then drive them back later in the day, you’re only getting a half day of work out of them.”
The red tape and iffy availability of inmates from the CWCs make that a very unappealing alternative for the 30 counties who, like Tallahatchie, have come to rely on the dependable and ready work of state prisoners housed at their own facilities to fill gaps in the county’s labor force.
But aside from local officials and local taxpayers who stand to suffer, who cares?
Just as the ramifications of unfunded mandates may not resonate where they originate, neither can MDOC, the Governor’s Office and other distant parties appreciate the potential impact to counties.
A ruckus is being raised by sheriffs, supervisors and legislators alike, but the opinions of officials and residents in 30 mostly rural, largely Democratic-leaning counties may not mean much to the state’s Republican hierarchy.
Some question whether Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, who appointed Fisher, is the driving force behind this plan.
Local state Rep. Tommy Reynolds, a Democrat, said Monday, “Fisher works straight under the governor. It’s ultimately the governor’s call.”
Like Brewer, Reynolds did not mince words, calling the inmate withdrawal plan “foolishness, foolishness, foolishness,” “utter ridulousness” and “one of the silliest things,” adding, “Whether sense will enter into this process, I’m not certain.”
In case anyone is interested, the governor’s office number is 601-359-3150.
