NAPOLEON — The board of the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio on Friday delayed taking action on employee layoffs, opting instead to give Toledo and Lucas County officials another week to work out their dispute on incarceration costs.
Adam Loukx, Toledo law director, and Pete Gerken, a Lucas County commissioner and member of the regional jail board, said they are in talks to settle the dispute over the billing for inmates sentenced in Toledo Municipal Court but charged under state law rather than Toledo ordinances.
“We are not there yet. But I remind the members of the board the bill is not due yet,” Mr. Loukx said. “I will tell you optimistically we are on track. I think we are making good progress.”
Toledo’s quarterly bill of nearly $1.4 million for the 228 beds used by inmates sentenced out of municipal court is due Thursday. However, Toledo did not appropriate money for the payment for final regional costs in the 2015 budget.
“We are not deadbeats. We are not overdue. We are trying to make sure, as a good partner does, this board is informed,” said Mr. Loukx, who attended the board meeting on Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson’s behalf.
Without Toledo’s money, the 25-year-old jail would only have enough funds to operate through Dec. 1. Shutting down the corrections center would leave the members — Lucas, Defiance, Henry, Willliams, and Fulton counties — without a facility to house sentenced inmates.
Board member Alan Word, a Williams County commissioner, said the potential shortfall would result in layoffs of correction officers and other staff and possible mothballing of the 638-bed facility.
However, Mr. Gerken asked the board to set another meeting for next Friday to allow the city and county to continue their discussions.
He said a resolution between the city and county “is not there yet” but there is hope for talks.
“I really understand the anxiousness and nervousness of this board and the other four counties,” Mr. Gerken said. “Optimism is [Mr. Loukx’s] word. Progress is my word.”
A stabilization plan offered to the city by Mr. Gerken would have the county absorb about $4 million of the city’s nearly $11 million annual costs for housing pretrial inmates at the county jail and other court-related services as well as the costs for sentenced inmates from municipal court to CCNO.
The board, in a 10-2 vote, scheduled a meeting for 2 p.m. Friday, the day after Toledo’s bill comes due, at the Henry County Emergency Operations Center. Defiance County Commissioner Otto Nicely and Fulton County Sheriff Roy Miller cast the no votes.
Dennis Sullivan, the jail’s director of security and operations, presented options to the board for actions they could take if negotiations between Toledo and Lucas County fail and the quarterly payment isn’t made.
Without Toledo’s share and operating on the funds of other members, the corrections center would run out of money on Dec. 1, but each member, including Toledo, would need to contribute funds for the $2.6 million needed for unemployment, paid leave, and other termination costs.
Lucas County and Toledo would be expected to pay $827,000 and $929,000, respectively.
The other option provided by Mr. Sullivan calls for the board to close five units of the facility, resulting in the jail being downsized to 174 inmates. He said 81 of the correction center’s 200 employees would be laid off.
Even with the layoffs, the facility would only have enough money to operate through the end of November, he said.
After the meeting the city and county released the following joint statement: “We will continue to meet and have discussions so that CCNO may provide corrections services for northwest Ohio.”
Contact Mark Reiter at: markreiter@theblade.com or 419-724-6199.
First Published September 26, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
