Commissioners appalled by reaction of some reps to request for jail appropriation

LACONIA — Belknap County commissioners dug in their heels Wednesday morning as they defended their request for a supplemental appropriation of $185,000 to hire a consulting firm to help design programs that would lead to a decrease in the county jail population.

The issue will come up again on July 16 at a recessed meeting of the County Convention, which Monday night voted 8-7 to authorize the hiring of a consultant but only if the money comes from the current year's budget.

That meeting had been recessed after doubts were raised about the legality of the vote, which commissioners maintain infringes on their power over the operating budget.

Commission Chairman Ed Philpot, who was not at Monday night's meeting, said ''they can't tell us how to spend the money'' and, after hearing from County Administrator Debra Shackett that taking funds from the present budget would mean a budget freeze, said that if the delegation won't step up to the plate and pass a supplemental appropriation this year, commissioners will put the request in next year's budget and ''wait for a new delegation'' to approve it.

Commissioners are, however, still hoping to convince members of the House delegation to approve the supplemental funding this year and keep the ball rolling on plans to build a new county jail.

''We're stuck in the mud on this,'' said Commissioner Steve Nedeau, who said that the commission had worked closely with the delegation over the last two years and that he is surprised that delegation members are still asking questions which he says were answered two years ago.

''We've done everything possible to keep them informed. It disturbs me that there was such a negative tone to Monday night's meeting,'' he said, adding that he was ''not enthused about going back to the delegation.''

Shackett explained that taking money from this year's budget to pay for the consultant ''would at least mean a budget freeze, which would be debilitating,'' and said that the budget which the delegation had approved was very lean.

Commissioner John Thomas said that he felt that at Monday night's meeting that Shackett had taken ''a lot of abuse,'' from some members of the delegation. ''I felt it was uncalled for'' he said, adding that he too was reluctant to again deal with the convention.

Philpot was incensed by suggestions made by some members of the delegation that they weren't aware of problems at the county jail and that the commissioners don't have a plan for dealing with it.

''That's flat out not true. Either they're not listening or they don't understand. What it looks like is that there are some members with a listening problem,'' said Philpot.

Commissioners say the $160,000 of the $185,000 requested would be used to hire New York-based consultants RicciGreene Associates, a firm which has helped Strafford and Merrimack counties redesign their correctional programs and facilities. The remaining $25,000 in the request would be used,to pay for at least part of the project's anticipated architectural fees.

A previously hired consultant, David Bennett, studied the county jail and found that Belknap County's jail population increased by 114-percent during an eight-year span ending in 2008. Jail populations statewide only increased by 21-percent during the same period. Contributing to the rising population is the county's average pre-trial confinement time of 83 days and a disproportionately high recidivism rate, which measures how likely a person is to return to incarceration after completing a sentence.

Bennett concluded that Belknap County was relying too heavily on incarceration for lack of alternative programs, such as court diversion, drug abuse treatment, mental health or educational programs, which might leave convicted persons in a better situation than simply "warehousing" inmates until their sentences were completed.

After Bennett completed his work earlier this year, the commission created a Jail Planning Committee, but Shackett told the delegation Monday that the task of designing a new host of programs, and a contemporary correctional facility, was too great for a committee of people new to the challenge. "There's a big gap between knowing the things we need to do and hiring an architect," Shackett said. "At this point, we need someone to manage this process."