CARIBOU, Maine — Commissioner Norman Fournier of Wallagrass updated Aroostook County Commissioners on a recent Maine County Commissioners Association meeting regarding state jails.
“We spent around 45 minutes with the risk pool auditor Runyon Kersteen Ouellette,” said Fournier of the March 9 MCCA meeting. “We are financially healthy and there are no major recommendations, other than that there is only one person in the office checking the mail and checks. They were okay with the way we do it because all checks are signed by the Chairman of the Board.”
Commissioner Paul Underwood asked about $20,000 that was recently added to the budget.
“This money is for training that will take place from June 1st to Dec. 31, 2016 in all counties,” said Fournier, “there will be two training sessions in each county.”
According to Fournier, these training sessions will cover four topics: managing difficult inmates, cell check for inmates on suicide watch, jail staff ethics, and stress management.
“They will be up here providing two sessions to our employees,” Fournier told fellow Commissioners gathered March 16 in the Caribou Courthouse, “and there was a strong feeling in the group that they would like to see 100 percent mandatory attendance across the state.
“Depending on what’s happening in the jails, you can’t close down for a training session. However, people can go to sessions in other counties if they are unable to attend their own,” he said.
Fournier also spoke of MCCA discussions related to raising the limit on money counties can collect for corrections facilities via property taxes.
“The problem we have with the legislature in raising the cap is that there are only seven counties out of 16 in the state who used their additional funds this year, so how can you go to the legislature and say ‘you need to raise the cap’, when there are only seven counties that did?”
County jails will also experience a change in state funding. Instead of receiving money based on their previous funding formula, jails will now receive money based on their individual needs. The Wallagrass commissioner read a newly revised bill, stating that the “the DOC shall determine the financial needs of jails in cooperation with the MCCA and the Maine Sheriffs association, taking into consideration and verifying the expenditures of each jail.”
“I think we’ll do better, based on our financial needs, than by the old formula,” Fournier added.
