Committee to study Burnet County Jail’s fiscal future
Burnet County officials appointed a committee to determine the future of the jail and how to bring its finances out of the red and back in the black. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey
The Burnet County Jail’s financial struggles led the Commissioners Court to form an interdepartmental committee to find a way to save the lockup while protecting taxpayers from cost overruns. County Judge James Oakley also signed off on a $1.265 million medical contract for the jail, a more-than-60 percent increase from the current annual cost of $771,000. Both actions took place during the court’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 12, which was dominated by a discussion of the jail’s continuing money problems.
The appointed committee consists of commissioners Jim Luther and Damon Beierle, Burnet County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Matt Kimbler and Chief Deputy Alan Trevino, County Auditor Karin Smith, County Attorney Eddie Arredondo, and resident Patricia Cope, a frequent critic of the Commissioners Court who regularly attends meetings.
Oakley said the court was open to appointing another resident if anyone expressed an interest. The committee begins meeting in January 2024.
The county needed to sign off on a medical provider contract by Dec. 31 or face losing services with Turn-Key Medical Co., whose current contract expires on that date. The $1.265 million offer was the best option, said BCSO Capt. Kimbler.
The jail is at a crossroads, he explained. Facilities that maintain 300 inmates or more require 24/7 medical services. The Burnet County Jail is a 587-bed facility that currently houses 318 inmates.
“No one will touch us unless we have 24/7 medical, or go under 300 inmates,” Kimbler said. “So if you’d like to bring the population under 300, we can do that.”
Chief Deputy Trevino told commissioners the county has several difficult decisions to make before it can better control the jail’s finances.
“There are some things that we can certainly work with to discuss what is the best direction to go,” he said. “Like whether we continue to try to house out-of-county inmates or do we just house our own inmates.”
The jail’s current business model is built on housing out-of-county inmates at a premium rate to offset the costs of the large facility, located at 901 County Lane in Burnet, just off of U.S. 281. Burnet County currently has contracts with 25 other counties to pay $80 a day per inmate in residence. It costs the county about $50 per day to house an in-county inmate. These prices are based on the current medical care contract, not the one that goes into effect on Jan. 1, which is 63 percent higher.
Burnet County paid $15.3 million for the jail in 2015. It was built in 2008 through a private-public partnership for about $37 million. The developers went out of business and a court order mandated that investors be paid back. The facility was sold for pennies on the dollar with the county being the only viable buyer.
Trevino said the jail’s current budget cannot support the number of employees required to maintain the number of inmates it would take to make the jail profitable.
According to a 2020 audit, the jail needed 88 full-time staff members to adequately run it with 299 inmates, which is 19 fewer than the current population. Burnet County has budgeted 84 staff positions, but only 76 of them are currently filled.
The lack of staff leads to large overtime costs and the stacking of holiday time, Trevino said.
The jail would operate more efficiently with a lower population, he continued. At 240 inmates, only 57 employees are required to operate by state standards. The jail would have to pump up its inmate count to about 400 to make sustainable revenue, which would require maintaining about 100 people on staff.
“If the goal is to make money so that it relieves the county of some of the fiscal responsibility, personally, I think that could be done,” Trevino said. “But we’ve got to have some realistic numbers and have some good meetings and good discussion on how we get to that.”