April 11, 2019 500 AM
PRESIDIO COUNTY, MARFA – For the past seven months, neatly folded striped jumpsuits and boxes of orange plastic Crocs footwear sat untouched in the Presidio County Jail. After it stopped accepting federal prisoners in August 2018 and local prisoners in September, the jail will finally begin accepting prisoners once again on Monday, April 15.
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspected the jail last week, and on Monday sent a letter approving the jail to house prisoners again.
The jail removed all prisoners after a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system was installed to replace swamp coolers, but failed to add a necessary fire exhaust system. The state jail commission would not allow inmates until the issue was rectified, but soon other problems became apparent. Issues with wiring arose, and the jail’s 25-year-old security door panels went out of service. Despite a nearly eight-month hiatus where the jail held no prisoners, the sheriff’s office kept almost a dozen jail employees on staff, including corrections officers and food service employees. Salaries were paid even as revenue stagnated.
For the 2019 fiscal year, the jail is budgeted as the single largest revenue driver for the county other than tax receipts. The 2019 budget projected that the jail would bring in $1,297,500 in revenues, $1,296,000 of which was planned to come directly from the US Marshals paying the county to board and transport federal inmates.
“90% of inmates kept in the Presidio County Jail are from the US Marshals,” according to Jail Administrator Gracie Parras. Corporal Kaija Valkonen added that inmates are typically not here longer than nine months, and usually spend three to six months in the jail across from the county courthouse.
That prisoners weren’t accepted for about eight months will impact the actual revenues in both 2018 and 2019.
Given that the Marshals have not placed any of their inmates with Presidio County this fiscal year, County Auditor Patty Roach provided documentation that in fiscal year 2019, the county has spent $772,296.55, and only collected $650 in revenue.
The county auditor had previously estimated the total cost of jail repairs to be about $972,000, and it is unclear whether any of that cost has been included in the $772,296 spent already this year, or if that is only the cost of salaries and other expenses the jail has incurred in 2019. Roach couldn’t be contacted Wednesday to answer this question.
Roach also provided an amended version of the fiscal year 2019 projected revenue for the jail, now at $800,000, along with new projected expenses of $1,800,000. In 2019, the jail is now projected to have a million-dollar budget shortfall. To make up for it, the county would have to dip into the existing jail reserve of funds that have accrued from previous years. The bank currently holds $1,480,000, so the county would be withdrawing $1,000,000 to cover the gap.
At a tour of the facility this week, Parker Wiemers, who oversees maintenance for the jail, pointed out that the entire facility had been repainted by corrections officers during the construction. Across the facility, officers were busy searching cells to remove left behind construction materials or tools that could be weaponized by inmates. The tour also passed through the jail kitchen, where two staff members with no mouths to feed watched television.
Parras said that the jail wasn’t fully staffed when no prisoners were accepted, with vacancies for three corrections officer positions and one kitchen staff. During the downtime, Parras said her remaining staff, “did all the painting. They buffed the floors, they painted bunks, they changed out lights with Parker. It was a lot of repairs, much needed repairs that we couldn’t do because we had inmates.” The jail also brought in Marco Baeza to install the beams and chain link fencing that covers the open-air recreation yard.
The jail construction has caused the county to house all of its inmates at $48 a night, per inmate, in neighboring jails. But the freeze on beds at the county jail also impacted the City of Marfa’s bottom line. Since inmates couldn’t be housed locally, Marfa police have been driving those under arrest as far as Sierra Blanca to await trial or serve time.
Marfa Police Chief Estevan Marquez said, “We had to dip into some of our overtime for our officers to transport to Sierra Blanca. That’s one of the reasons why we got a temporary holding cell,” which is installed in the department’s offices next to City Hall. The city even “had to transport to Sanderson at one point.” Marquez expressed his gratitude, “If we can say anything, thank you to Brewster, Hudspeth, and Terrell (counties).”
Although the jail has rehabilitated its interior during the months without inmates, issues on the exterior are only beginning to be addressed. The jail’s roof was replaced in 2013 with insurance money, but Parras recently informed the County Commissioners Court, “The roof is bad. The last contractor that did it made a mess and there’s holes, and that’s why the ballast and lights are—water comes in and causes lights to fall and shatter on the floor.” The jail is currently seeking repair estimates.
Parras is optimistic that the necessary roof repairs will not impact jail operations, because contractors working on the roof won’t have to come inside. Inmate operations, and income from the US Marshals, can finally resume next week.
