The State of Missouri owes Cape County more than $500K; state is $35M behind paying local governments

The Missouri Department of Corrections owes Cape Girardeau County more than half a million dollars in reimbursements for housing inmates before they are transferred to state prisons.

Cape Girardeau County is not alone. As of mid-March, the state agency owed more than $35 million to Missouri’s counties and the City of St. Louis, according to the Department of Corrections (DOC).

Data showed the DOC as of mid-March had not paid more than $657,000 in reimbursements to Scott County, more than $157,000 to Perry County and some $47,000 to Bollinger County.

According to the DOC, Cape Girardeau County was owed more than $767,000 at that time. Since then, the county has received additional reimbursements that have brought the total down to just under $537,000, according to county Treasurer Roger Hudson.

DOC spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said the backlog boils down to a lack of funding.

“Unless something changes, I don’t see us catching up,” she said.

The agency is at least nine months behind in paying submitted board bills.

“We may be closer to a year behind at this point,” she said.

The Missouri Legislature annually allocates about $40 million to reimburse counties.

Counties are reimbursed in the order board bills are received, Pojmann said.

Funding problem

“We are allotted $10 million each quarter to pay out requests for reimbursements,” she said. “Usually all the money is gone in the first day.”

At that point, the agency must wait another three months for the next quarter’s appropriation.

“Meanwhile, we are not catching up,” Pojmann said.

Pojmann said lawmakers budgeted an additional $1.75 million for the coming fiscal year to be divided among all the counties in the state to help reduce the outstanding balance.

“That will cover about 4% of the amount owed,” she wrote in an email to the Southeast Missourian.

But Hudson, the Cape Girardeau County treasurer, said lawmakers actually reduced funding for reimbursements. Even with the $1.75 million, total funding is budgeted at $39.75 million for fiscal 2020.

The legislature also earmarked $5 million for an electronic monitoring program that would reimburse counties $10 to $12 a day for offenders who are released with electronic shackles rather than kept in jail.

“It is cheaper,” Hudson said. But it is up to circuit judges to decide whether they want to place offenders on the monitoring program.

Since its creation last year, Missouri’s judges have largely been unwilling to release offenders, Hudson said.

“Nothing can make a judge do that,” he said.

The DOC and county officials agree on one thing: The reimbursements don’t cover the expense of housing inmates in county jails before they are sent to state prisons.

Cape Girardeau County Associate Commissioner Charles Herbst said it costs the county about $45 a day to board an inmate.

The state reimburses counties $22.58 per inmate per day.

Hudson said in the case of Cape Girardeau County, “we are still paying half of the cost.”

State law specified that after July 1, 1997, the reimbursement rate per inmate could total $37.50 per day, subject to legislative appropriation, “but not less than the amount appropriated in the previous fiscal year.”

Hudson said lawmakers, however, have ignored state law by reducing the reimbursement rate at various times.

In 1998, the rate was $22.50. It has been increased and decreased several times since then. From 2010 to 2014, counties were reimbursed at a rate of $19.58.

The current $22.58 rate has been in effect since July 2017, according to state records. The rate has never approached the $37.50 level.

“We can’t control the legislature, and the legislature decides if it is more important to spend the money somewhere else,” Hudson said.

The Missouri Association of Counties and the County Commissioners Association of Missouri repeatedly have urged lawmakers to fully fund the reimbursement program to eliminate the outstanding balance.

Herbst, who is president of the commissioners association, said he would have preferred lawmakers had taken the $5 million allocated for electronic monitoring and used it to help fund jail-board reimbursements.

“Let’s get it all caught up,” he said.

Herbst said Missouri’s county officials are willing to explore better ways to cover the jail expenses, but first the state needs to eliminate the reimbursement backlog.

Missouri is the only state that reimburses counties for holding inmates while their court cases are processed, according to the Missouri Association of Counties.

Hudson said he believes state officials would prefer to do away with the reimbursement program.

“I think that is the endgame,” he said.

Despite the backlog, Cape Girardeau County is receiving reimbursements on a more timely basis now, Herbst and Hudson said.

At one time within the last several years, the county was owed well more than $1 million, according to Hudson.

A billing issue

The state-run circuit clerk’s office in Cape Girardeau County was slow in submitting board bills to DOC, he said. The clerk’s office was as much as 22 or 23 months behind in submitting bills, he said.

The delay in submitting board bills in Cape Girardeau County and elsewhere across the state resulted from a policy of the Office of State Courts Administrator, which manages the court system statewide, Hudson said.

That office’s policy provided a two-year time frame for board bills to be submitted, he said.

The local circuit clerk’s office is now submitting bills on a more timely basis, Hudson said.

Herbst said the clerk’s office is paying a part-time employee to do the paperwork needed to submit the board bills.

Hudson said the result has been less of a reimbursement backlog locally.

“We got in front of the line by getting our bill of cost in quicker,” Hudson said.

Still, he said lawmakers aren’t adequately funding the state’s financial obligation.

“They aren’t appropriating enough money to pay what they owe,” he said.

Even with the backlog, the DOC has reimbursed Cape Girardeau, Scott, Bollinger and Perry counties combined more than $3.4 million over the last nearly three fiscal years, according to state records.

Starting in July 2016 and running through mid-March of this year, Cape Girardeau County had received $1.81 million; Scott County, $1.07 million; Perry County, $409,013; and Bollinger County, $153,447.

The reimbursement total more than doubled for Cape Girardeau County from fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2018, increasing from $432,944 to $890,598. Hudson credited the increase to the more timely submitting of board bills.

The money goes into the county’s general revenue fund, Hudson said.

While rural counties such as Bollinger are owed less money, Herbst said the outstanding balance is a major concern for such counties because they have smaller operating budgets.

“For smaller counties, it is huge,” Herbst said.

Do you like stories about government and courts? Keep up with the latest news by signing up for our daily morning headline email. Go to www.semissourian.com/newsletters to find out more.