Request By:
Mr. David H. Bland
Executive Director
Kentucky Jailers Association
Route #2, McCowans Ferry Road
Versailles, Kentucky 40383
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
A problem concerning the payment of housing costs of prisoners in county jails is dealt with in your letter, which reads:
"Given the enactment of the Jail Reform Legislation in 1982, which abolished the fee system, the Corrections Cabinet began reimbursing the County Jail Budgets for those prisoners who had been final sentenced on a felon charge. This reimbursement begins on the 7th day after sentencing and extends until he is admitted to LaGrange.
"Since the fee system has been abolished, should not the Corrections Cabinet reimburse County Jail Budgets for those felon prisoners who are returned to the jail as a material witness in another matter or who are returned based on an 1142 writ?"
The Corrections Cabinet has indicated to us that in recent months a housing problem arose relating to the counties' housing of prisoners convicted of felony and sentenced to a corrections institution. This has been brought about, they say, primarily as a result of civil rights litigation and court orders relating to space and prison environment standards. Thus, since convicted felons could not be moved immediately to the corrections system for the county jails, Corrections though it only fair and equitable that the jail budgets be reimbursed for keeping such prisoners for a short period until they could be transferred to a Corrections institution. Corrections negotiated an arrangement with the Kentucky Jailers Association whereby Corrections would pay the counties (in connection with jail budgets) a $10 fee per day per convict beginning on the 7th day after sentencing and extending until the felon is admitted to LaGrange. The basic payment of housing costs is reflected in the 1982 state budget (H.B. 295, Ch. 398), Part I General Fund, Item 28 (Corrections) b. Adult Institutions.
KRS 441.006(1) provides that "The fiscal court of each county shall provide for the incarceration of prisoners arrested in the county or sentenced or held by order of the courts in the county." (Emphasis added).
As a reasonable implication of the budget housing provisions, and as a matter of equity and fairness, the $10 fee arrangement as a payment of housing costs of such prisoners is, we think, legitimate. It is merely paying for their keep, wherever they are situate. The court stated in
Rouse v. Johnson, 234 Ky. 473, 28 S.W.2d 745 (1930), that statutes should be given a practical interpretation to carry out manifest purpose.
Addressing your specific question as to the extending of the housing fee to Corrections prisoners brought back to the county jail as witnesses or under an RCr 11.42 proceeding, it is our opinion that the housing fee arrangement cannot be extended to embrace those situations. KRS 441.006(1), in its description of prisoners the county is required to house, does not embrace these two categories of prisoners. The Corrections part of the state budget does not embrace such categories. We can only suggest you go to the General Assembly for an appropriate statute covering this anomaly.