Editorial: Shackled by old agreement

Monday, Nov. 28, 2005 | 10:23 a.m.

A recent audit showing that the city of North Las Vegas is losing about $1 million a year by housing federal prisoners says the city should either renegotiate its federal deal or get out of the contract.

A Las Vegas Sun report Friday says the $72 a day the U.S. government gives North Las Vegas to house federal inmates awaiting trial or held on immigration law violations doesn't cover the $79 the city spends daily per inmate. And it doesn't even approach covering administrative costs that the city's finance director say put North Las Vegas' annual losses from housing the prisoners closer to $2 million.

The audit, performed by a California-based consultant, examined all areas of North Las Vegas municipal operations and management. The 15-year contract the city has to house federal prisoners was one component of the report.

North Las Vegas has asked for an increase in the reimbursement. The U.S. marshal in charge of the agency's Nevada operations told the Sun he supports the increase but can't do anything because of a budget deficit that since February has imposed a nationwide freeze on prisoner rates.

City officials are reluctant to break the contract. In 2000, North Las Vegas accepted a $5.8 million federal grant to expand its detention facility to accommodate federal prisoners. If the city breaks its contract, it would have to reimburse that amount to the federal government.

The audit said it could be cheaper in the long-run to break the federal contract, but only if the city also cut its detention staff and capped the number of other prisoners it holds. The U.S. marshal for Nevada said the North Las Vegas facility would have similar staffing even without the federal inmates. Still, he would support a fee increase if North Las Vegas officials document the need.

Any actual increase is held at bay until Congress approves the 2006 budget for prisoner detention.

But in any scenario, the federal government should be paying local agencies what it actually costs to house federal inmates. And if federal officials aren't willing to do so, then they should release these agencies from their contracts and find other housing for prisoners.