Hernando County taxpayers escape hit from federal inmate transfer

BROOKSVILLE — Hernando County taxpayers have dodged a big financial hit, thanks to a reworked contract with the private company that runs the county jail.

The federal inmates who have constituted a large portion of the population of the Hernando County Jail, and were a significant income source for Corrections Corporation of America, have been moved by the federal government in recent days to other facilities, CCA officials said Wednesday.

The move will not have a direct impact on taxpayers, said Jim Gantt, county purchasing director, because the County Commission already had renegotiated its contract with CCA this summer.

The federal inmates, mostly people held on illegal immigrant charges, used to provide a monetary offset to the county's cost to run the jail. The county would collect a piece of the $55.96 per inmate per day that the federal government paid to CCA.

But the new contract dropped any income to Hernando from those out-of-county inmates. In exchange, the county got a contract extension and a lower cost for in-county inmates.

"At this time, the board appears to have made a good decision to not count on the out-of-county revenue,'' Gantt said.

He noted that at the beginning of last year's budgeting, the county was anticipating $1.2 million in projected revenue from the detainees.

Federal officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency did not respond to questions about why they made the move.

Both CCA and the county are at a loss for an explanation.

"We've provided a great value to ICE and in a recent review received a very high quality rating,'' said CCA spokesman Steve Owen. "I can't answer why they chose another community over this one.''

Owen couldn't say how many inmates were moved, but did say "we're going to try to convince ICE to come back.''

County officials have gotten no official notice of the change, according to Gantt.

The ICE inmate numbers have been as high as 250 but slid to around 120 last month before the entire ICE inmate population was moved, Gantt said. There were just six out-of-county inmates in the jail earlier this week, he said, and no ICE inmates.

The 876-bed jail has been housing ICE inmates since late 2006.

Barbara Behrendt can be reached at behrendt@sptimes.com or (352) 848-1434.