Waco
– McLennan County Commissioners negotiated an extension to the
contract with CEC, Inc., to operate the Jack Harwell Detention Center
and the Downtown County Jail for an additional six months.
In
a 3 to 2 vote, the Court accepted a pay cut from $40,000 per month to
sustain the contract on the 329-bed downtown lockup to $10,000 per
month, plus one dollar per day for each non-county federal inmate
housed at the Detention Center.
The
contract addendum will run from July 1 to December 31, “provided,
however that should the population in any calendar month for the
duration of this Agreement average more than 450 prisoners then the
original terms of the...agreement shall instead determine the
payments due to the County.”
Commissioner
Kelly Snell abstained in the vote; Commissioner Joe Mashek voted
against the agreement. County Judge Jim Lewis, Commissioner Lester
Gibson, and Commissioner Ben Perry voted for the contract extension.
Payments
after December 31 will be based on a threshold monthly average per
diem rate of $52.00 and 90% capacity at the Detention Center for a
period of two consecutive months. If that threshold is reached, the
operator, CEC, Inc., will reopen the downtown jail.
For
the first 180 days in that event, “the...fee revenue received by
the County from the Downtown Jail shall not be less than $40,000 per
month after re-population regardless of population...”
Let me get this straight, we own the building and the land. We paid for the building. We are paying to house our inmates their. We are now paying more per inmate a day to go along with the increased number of inmates we are housing there. We also lowered the payments for the company we are paying all this money to do the job of our Sheriff, to keep the cheaper downtown jail empty as CEC continues to drag their feet. And this is the new deal we negotiated? We were better off before we negotiated this new deal. Can we find some other way for our Sheriff and his cronies to burn more taxpayer money?
ReplyDeleteAmen. So mote it be. - The Legendary
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