Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Marshals move prisoners over housing fees dispute

The U.S. Marshals Service has removed its prisoners from the Clark County Detention Center because of a yearlong dispute over housing fees that county officials claim have left the county $90,000 in the hole.

Joe Gumiensky, financial officer for the CCDC, said about 70 federal inmates have slowly been moved out of the county's jail since the federal government's contract ended July 1.

The most recent contract called for the federal government to pay the county $80 a day per inmate to house federal inmates, but Department of Justice officials began trying to renegotiate the contract following an audit last year.

The audit showed that a fairer housing fee would be about $66.55 a day, said David Turner, a U.S. Marshals Service spokesman in Washington.

Efforts to renegotiate the contract failed and the Department of Justice stopped paying the full $80 fee approximately four months ago, Gumiensky said. The government had shortchanged the county in April 1999, too, but began paying the full amount again a month later.

The federal government now owes the county approximately $90,000, Gumiensky said.

"We offered to let them stay, to be good neighbors so to speak, but we couldn't charge them less than the $80," Gumiensky said.

The federal inmates are now being held at jails operated by the cities of North Las Vegas, Henderson and Las Vegas, Gumiensky said.

The only issue that remains now is the $90,000.

Gumiensky said letters are being exchanged in the hopes the issue can be resolved. If not, the matter will be referred to the Clark County district attorney's office.

Turner said the Department of Justice is of the opinion that both sides had agreed several months ago that the federal government would pay $66.55 a day until the contract ended July 1.

The county couldn't possibly lower the daily fee, said George Stevens, Clark County director of finance.

The jail is so overcrowded that for every federal inmate that comes in, a county inmate has to be moved to another local jail at a cost of $50 a day, Stevens said.

That, along with the fact that it costs $70 a day per inmate to operate the detention center, means that lowering the $80 fee would cost the county money, Stevens said.

"We're renting two whole buildings at the city's jail facility, plus we're renting beds from Henderson and North Las Vegas on top of that," Stevens said, noting that the 70 beds freed up haven't had a significant impact.

Department of Justice officials hope that once a 1,400-bed jail extension is completed next year a new contract can be renegotiated, Turner said.

"Once the new facility is done we'd be willing to revisit the issue of whether we want to contract with them," Stevens said.

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