Iowa County will house more federal prisoners

MARENGO — Iowa County Supervisors voted last week to accept more federal prisoners from the U.S. Marshals Service.

“They say they can give us whatever we want,” whenever the county wants them, Iowa County Sheriff Rob Rotter said Friday.

“The Marshals office in Cedar Rapids likes what we do,“ said Rotter during an earlier meeting of the Iowa County Board of Supervisors.

Iowa County keeps nearly 14 federal prisoners and recently increased the amount it’s paid by the U.S. government for each prisoner from $60 a day to $85 a day.

But to meet the demand of transporting the prisoners to court dates and other appointments, the county needs to hire another jailer. If that’s not feasible, the county would need to cut the number of federal prisoners to about 10 due to staffing, Rotter said.

Or the county could hire another jailer and increase the number of federal prisoners it will house, Rotter said.

The increase of two or three prisoners would bring in up to $500,000 a year, said Rotter, well above the amount needed to pay another jailer’s salary and benefits.

More federal prisoners will also mean more money coming in to the commissary, Rotter said. Unlike state inmates, federal inmates spend money, he said.

The only downside of keeping more prisoners is greater liability, said Rotter, but jailers don’t have as much trouble with federal prisoners as with state prisoners.

“We’d much rather have a federal inmate,” said Rotter. State prisoners are harder to deal with.

Supervisor Abigail Maas asked Rotter Friday if the county could put it off until July, but Rotter said he has a part-time jailer who has worked as a full-time jailer before and might be willing to take a full-time position with Iowa County.

The candidate might not be available in July.

Hiring someone who is already certified will save the county the cost of certifying a new jailer, about $3,000, Rotter said.

Even though the county has an interested candidate, it has to follow legal steps to hire. The process of advertising the position and interviewing candidates will take 30-40 days, Rotter estimated.

Housing more federal prisoners will bring in more revenue, said Supervisor Jon Degen. He called the decision “a no-brainer.”

“I think this would be a missed opportunity,” said Jail Administrator Jeff Krotz.

The board asked Rotter if he’d be able to get more federal prisoners if he asked for them.

“It’s not going to be a matter of can we have them, but how many can we take,” Rotter said.

Rotter thinks 16 or 17 is the most Iowa County can house. Eighteen might be pushing it, he said. The county still has to have room for state prisoners.

“The Marshals like us because we stuck with them when Linn Co. didn’t,” said Rotter. He said he was surprised when Linn County stopped taking the prisoners because it amounts to millions of dollars, but it also requires more staff, which is problem in some counties.