BILLINGS — On Tuesday, Yellowstone County commissioners declined to rescind a resolution they passed last month increasing the rate the Yellowstone County Detention Facility will be reimbursed to $117 per day per inmate.
Currently, the Department of Corrections prisoner reimbursement rate is $82.80 per inmate, per day. For federal inmates, the amount is increased to $85 per inmate, per day.
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"The cost of housing inmates in the Yellowstone County Detention Facility is $117 a day. That's what it cost us to house them," said Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder on Tuesday. "We've been negotiating with the Marshal's Service for several months now to get to the rate that we should be at."
The jail is getting paid much less than what Linder and the commissioners believe to be a fair reimbursement rate, and Yellowstone County taxpayer dollars are making up for it. According to the county, compared to what the jail is currently being paid, on Tuesday alone taxpayer dollars had to make up for over $4,400 of inmate costs.
"The idea is to get this up so that we're not using local taxpayer dollars to fill in for funding the actual cost also," Linder said. "We don't have to hold inmates for less than it cost us to house them."
The state inmate daily reimbursement rate was increased in 2023 by the Legislature from $69 to $82.80.
The federal inmate daily reimbursement rate comes from the U.S. Marshals Service, which has a longstanding relationship with Yellowstone County. District of Montana U.S. Marshal Craig Anderson wrote a letter to commissioners on Jan. 29 asking them to rescind the resolution.
"I wanted the commissioners to essentially reconsider their decision," Anderson said. "I just wanted them to pause, particularly because Yellowstone County is currently in negotiations for a new rate with the U.S. Marshals Service in D.C."
Craig said there is a big difference between the state and federal inmates, from the amount to the time spent at the facilities.
On Tuesday, the Yellowstone County jail was holding 92 state inmates. According to Anderson, there are 409 DOC inmates in county jails across the state.
“Contrast that with the U.S. Marshals, we have just 37 of our inmates in Yellowstone County jail," Anderson said. "The U.S. Marshal inmate population is fluid, meaning they're going through the court process."
In 2016, Yellowstone County and the U.S. Marshals Service negotiated the $85 rate for a five year term. In 2021, Yellowstone County chose to not renegotiate that rate.
"Yellowstone County had an opportunity to renegotiate their rate with the U.S. Marshals service in 2021, whether they chose not to or failed to apply for a new rate, they didn't," Anderson said. "So, they could have had a new rate in 2021."
Linder said the county was preparing for the new jail expansion and wanted to have accurate numbers, so it did not negotiate in 2021.
"The U.S. Marshals service has contracts with the sheriffs across the country. I think there's about 1,800 contracts to house U.S. Marshals prisoners. So the U.S. Marshals service is pretty good at figuring out what is a fair and equitable per diem," Anderson said. "If they hold to the resolution and say, essentially, U.S. Marshals, we're going to cap you at 20 beds in Yellowstone County, then we have to find someplace else for those inmates to be."
The resolution will become effective on April 1.
"Right now, the ball is basically in their court because they have the application. The information with all the numbers is sent back to them. And then they'll come back to us with what they determine the rate should be," Linder said.
