El Paso county commissioners look to cut down on jail costs

cut down on costs operating the jail… but they continue running into obstacles. new information tonight from abc- seven’s andrew j. polk… andrew? rick and estela, the county jail system including the downtown jail is a major money drain for the county – more than $70 million dollars a year. today commissioners heard about a contract with the city, in place since 2010. it has the city paying the county about $300 thousand dollars a year to house municipal inmates… those with warrants from things like parking violations or citations. commissioner vince perez says that contract auto- renews every year… and it was simply categorized as a revenue source, and had never been examined for cost- effectiveness. he says that without tracking how many people are being booked into the jail on these violations… it could just be costing the taxpayer more overall. “the population of the jail has an impact on staffing. and so these are things i believe need to be looked at very carefully to ensure taxpayers aren’t paying more than necessary for things that can be settled outside of jail.” perez and other commissioners suggested that community service could be used for those violations instead. but a police spokesman told me he’s not aware of any other option for police to deal with municipal warrants beyond booking them into the county jail. rick and estela? new mexico state university