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Starting Feb. 15 if you are sentenced to serve time in the Redwood County jail it is going to cost you.
At its meeting this past Tuesday, the Redwood County Board of Commis-sioners adopted a new policy that would require anyone who is sentenced to serve time to pay a per day cost of $25 to the county.
The concept of pay to stay is not a new one, as a number of area counties have already implemented having prisoners pay something for the time they serve.
In the area, Renville, Brown, Cottonwood, Brown and Yellow Medicine counties have pay to stay in place, with thousands of dollars collected each year.
The county board had been discussing the idea with Randy Hanson, Redwood County sheriff, and Patrick Rohland, Redwood County attorney for some time. A recent supreme court decision clarified for the county what it could and could not do when it comes to pay for stay.
Under the decision of the court, it can charge prisoners for the time they remain in jail, but only after they have been sentenced.
Those who are in jail awaiting court can not be charged for that time.
One of the challenges facing the county as it offers the charges for the time spent in jail is actually collecting the money from prisoners.
Hanson recommended to the board using the services of a collection agency which would go after those who have not paid their bill.
The collection agency is paid a commission rate of 8 percent, 20 percent for collections and 35 percent for legal collections.
The board agreed to move ahead with Superior Billing /Financial Consultants as its collection service.
The board also agreed to reduce the cost per day for those who pay the fee before doing their time or by the time they are finished serving their time. The per day cost for those individuals is $20.
According to information provided by the Redwood County Sheriff’s Depart-ment, there were 4,853 sentenced inmate days in 2009, and at $25 per day the county could recover more than $120,000.
Those who have experience estimate the county could realistically collect anywhere from 8-15 percent of that funding.
“I think we want to recover as much as we can,” said Al Kokesch, adding the collection percentages are not great but they are certainly something.
Rohland and Hanson are going to spend some time between now and the effective date to establish the procedures and policies for the pay to stay program.
The collection does not cover the actual cost to the county for the housing of a prisoner.
Those specific numbers were not available from the county at the time this edition went to print.
Starting Feb. 15 if you are sentenced to serve time in the Redwood County jail it is going to cost you.
At its meeting this past Tuesday, the Redwood County Board of Commis-sioners adopted a new policy that would require anyone who is sentenced to serve time to pay a per day cost of $25 to the county.
The concept of pay to stay is not a new one, as a number of area counties have already implemented having prisoners pay something for the time they serve.
In the area, Renville, Brown, Cottonwood, Brown and Yellow Medicine counties have pay to stay in place, with thousands of dollars collected each year.
The county board had been discussing the idea with Randy Hanson, Redwood County sheriff, and Patrick Rohland, Redwood County attorney for some time. A recent supreme court decision clarified for the county what it could and could not do when it comes to pay for stay.
Under the decision of the court, it can charge prisoners for the time they remain in jail, but only after they have been sentenced.
Those who are in jail awaiting court can not be charged for that time.
One of the challenges facing the county as it offers the charges for the time spent in jail is actually collecting the money from prisoners.
Hanson recommended to the board using the services of a collection agency which would go after those who have not paid their bill.
The collection agency is paid a commission rate of 8 percent, 20 percent for collections and 35 percent for legal collections.
The board agreed to move ahead with Superior Billing /Financial Consultants as its collection service.
The board also agreed to reduce the cost per day for those who pay the fee before doing their time or by the time they are finished serving their time. The per day cost for those individuals is $20.
According to information provided by the Redwood County Sheriff’s Depart-ment, there were 4,853 sentenced inmate days in 2009, and at $25 per day the county could recover more than $120,000.
Those who have experience estimate the county could realistically collect anywhere from 8-15 percent of that funding.
“I think we want to recover as much as we can,” said Al Kokesch, adding the collection percentages are not great but they are certainly something.
Rohland and Hanson are going to spend some time between now and the effective date to establish the procedures and policies for the pay to stay program.
The collection does not cover the actual cost to the county for the housing of a prisoner.
Those specific numbers were not available from the county at the time this edition went to print.
