Jail raises rate for keeping federal prisoners

MARENGO — Iowa County Supervisors agreed last week to contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to house federal prisoners for $85 a day.

The Marshal Service had been paying $60 a day, Iowa County Sheriff Rob Rotter told Supervisors during the Jan. 17 meeting of the board, but Rotter said that was too little.

The new contract raises the rate $25. The contract hasn’t changed, said Rotter. Only the price.

Iowa County houses the federal prisoners and transports them when they need to go to court and to other places. The Marshal Service pays $30 an hour plus mileage for transportation, according to the contract.

Rotter said the we Marshal Service is raising that to $60.

In addition to presenting the new contract to Supervisors, Rotter asked the board if it would like to keep more federal prisoners.

“The Marshal’s office in Cedar Rapids likes what we do,“ said Rotter.

According to the agreement with the Marshal’s Service, Iowa County has 16 beds available for male federal prisoners and one bed for female prisoners.

Keeping more prisoners would bring in more money, but transporting them presents a problem, said Rotter. It takes two people to move a prisoner, and the Iowa County Jail isn’t staffed to transport the number it has now.

Iowa County would have to keep at least three jailers on day shifts to cover transports, said Rotter.

“We average 14 federal inmates a day and make about $300,000,” said Rotter.

With the new rate of $85 a day, the county could cut back — to make transports feasible — and still make more than $300,000 a year.

However, if the jail took another two or three prisoners, the county could make up to $500,000 a year, said Rotter.

“Do we want to increase our revenue?” Rotter asked the board.

If the county takes more federal prisoners, it will need to hire another jailer, Rotter said. He’s tried managing with part-time jailers, but with only a day’s notice to transport a prisoner, that’s not feasible.

If the county took more prisoners and hired another full-time jailer at top pay, it would still make $80,000 more a year, estimated Rotter.

In addition, the cost per meal goes down as the number of prisoners increases, Rotter said.

And the money coming into the commissary increases. Unlike state inmates, federal inmates spend money, Rotter said. The county has a $200,000 commissary balance, he said.

Revenue from the commissary can be used only for the betterment of the inmates. Tax money doesn’t pay for soap and towels and other such items because commissary money is used for that.

“We can use it for vehicles because we transport [prisoners],” said Rotter.

With more prisoners in the jail, Compass Memorial Healthcare will go to the jail to treat prisoners, said Rotter. “That’s been a godsend,” he said because jailers don’t have to transport prisoners to the hospital.

Compass has a really good customer in the federal government, said Rotter.

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

If the county doesn’t hire another jailer, it will probably have to drop the number of federal prisoners to 10, Rotter said, but the county will still make money.

“I don’t think we can keep up with the way things are now.”

The county has a 44-bed jail, but because of segregation, all the beds aren’t usually available Men and women have to be separated and violent criminals must be kept away from non-violent criminals, Rotter explained.

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.

If the jail isn’t at capacity and the county can make more money by taking more prisoners, it should do that, said Iowa County Supervisor Abby Maas.

But Supervisor Kevin Heitshusen noted that the county has struggled to find jailers.

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.

Iowa County jailers have a good relationship with the federal marshals, said Jail Administrator Jeff Krotz.

“It’s been good,” said Rotter.

Looking ahead to the new administration in Washington, D.C., Rotter alluded to deportations of immigrants.

“We know we don’t want an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract,” said Rotter. The rule book for taking care of Immigration and Customs Enforcement inmates is three times the size of regulations for other federal prisoners, he said.

You have to do for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement prisoners that you don’t have to do for citizens, Rotter said. There are no U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement prisoners in Iowa, he said.