AB 109: The road ahead
Inyo and Mono County face challenges from State “Realignment.”
The Inyo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the 2014-2015 Community Corrections Partnership Plan (CCPP) at Tuesday’s meeting in Independence. The CCPP seeks to create short and long term cost avoidance solutions, given the changes to County services necessitated by Assembly Bill 109.
AB 109, also known as the Public Safety Realignment Act, transfers responsibility for specified lower level offenders from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations to counties. Transferred offenders must have been convicted of non-violent, non-sex offenses.
In 2011, both Inyo and Mono Counties began receiving low level offenders, who will serve out the remainder of their jail terms and probation periods within each county.
According to the CCPP, from 2012 to 2014, the AB 109 inmate population has increased from 11 to 33 percent of the overall Inyo County jail population. Inmates’ average sentence length is 515 days.
Inyo currently has two full term AB 109 inmates, five split sentences (inmates serving part of their time in jail, and the remainder under supervision), and three in Post Community Release Supervision.
Mono County Deputy Probation Officer Curtis Hill said that Mono County has 28 full term inmates, six split sentence (three remain in jail; the other three are out under supervision), and seven in Post Community Release Supervision.
The State allocates annual funds to support AB 109 programs, as well as activities and training related to AB 109.
In Fiscal Year 2013-14, Inyo County received an AB 109 funding allocation of about $476,000, according to the CCPP.
Mono County received about $431,000, said Hill. However, expenses incurred from AB 109 were about $511,000 that year, he added. The County paid the difference from a prior year’s surplus.
The State also grants counties one-time Community Corrections Partnership Planning funds, which allow Inyo and Mono to bring together Probation, Sheriff’s, Police, and Public Health Departments; District Attorney, and Court representatives to strategize the AB 109 implementation process, particularly given limited budgets and rising costs.
“We have a very knowledgeable and effectively working CCP,” said Inyo County Health and Human Services (HHS) Director Jean Turner.
Turner praised the CCP’s awareness of a looming health care crisis resulting from AB 109 inmate medical services. HHS staff has been tracking “an alarming spike in medical costs to our inmate population” since last year, said Turner.
Jail medical service costs include a contract with Southern Inyo Hospital, a pharmaceutical contract, jail nurse, physician, dentist, ambulance, and other miscellaneous costs.
Prior to AB 109, inmates could only serve up to a year in county jails. Now, inmates can serve multiple year sentences. Many AB 109 inmates come to county jails with preexisting health issues, such as diabetes, chronic heart conditions, or early stages of cancer, Turner said. “We’re much more likely to be managing those kinds of chronic health conditions,” she said.
To date, the cost of jail medical services for Fiscal Year 2013-14 has been $375,000, Turner said. $108,000 was specific to AB 109 inmates.
By comparison, the total cost for jail medical service in FY 2012-13 was $263,430.
The Mono County Sheriff’s Dept. could not be reached for comment on its own inmate medical service cost.
Inyo pays for inmate healthcare out of the HHS Public Health budget. “The specific funding stream is 1991 Health Realignment,” Turner explained; “but in 1991, several public health programs were ‘realigned’ and this money was intended to pay for broader public health programs as well as inmate medical. As the State context around inmate medical has changed, the funds for covering those costs did not change … leaving a little rural county like Inyo a bit in the lurch.
“In the absence of [changes] in Sacramento, future years will find our Board of Supervisors challenged to choose between inmate health care and other public health programs for the community at large.”
Turner said HHS has been meeting with criminal justice partners to discuss the issue. These partners agree with HHS’s concern that “it will be the inmates healthcare issues that break the bank,” she said.
Curtis Hill echoed this sentiment. He noted that an increase in inmates, and all the costs associated with them, “is a concern across the State … There will certainly be impacts on the Sheriff’s Department, as far as bed space and officers to supervise … and then an impact on Probation, as the bed space is taken up.”
A Mono County CCP presentation to the Mono Board of Supervisors observed that the growing jail population will necessitate more programming to reduce tension and stress, or else risk “the increased possibility of confrontation between inmates and staff.”
Indeed, the Inyo County CCPP presents a graph attesting to a growth in violent incidents in the Inyo County Jail. Such incidents rose from 10 in 2011, the first year of AB 109 Realignment, to 18 in 2012, and 16 in 2013.
These and other challenges faced by Inyo, Mono, and other California counties, will likely only grow more acute as AB 109 continues transferring State inmates to county jails.
According to the Mono CCP presentation, 18,000 offenders have been diverted from state prisons since 2011; this represents just 9 percent of the overall reduction goal.
“If the current AB 109 population trends continue,” the Inyo CCPP states, “there is a very real possibility that Inyo County could be confronted with a significant fiscal crisis arising out of multiple arenas; jail overcrowding, a significant custodial health care issue; liability associated with officer safety; high recidivism rates arising out of diminished treatment, services, alternative custody programs; and community supervision of higher risk offenders. Any of these potential situations could prove to be the tipping point into crisis.”
In light of this, this year, the CCPP recommended the County invest in a new case management system, jail programs and services, Re-Entry Services Coordinator position, Deputy Probation Officer position, and set aside $300,000 AB 109 money for a Catastrophic Illness Fund.
The goal of these and other recommendations is to keep the Inyo Jail population under 99 and reduce recidivism rates below the State average of 70 percent, minimizing the burden on both the County budget and staff as the State continues to redirect AB 109 inmates continue to Inyo.
