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Board Approves Funding for Expanded Pretrial Services
Feb 1, 2005 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Pete Winton, Lee County Administration BOARD APPROVES FUNDING FOR EXPANDED PRETRIAL SERVICES FORT MYERS, Fla. (February 1, 2005) - The Board of Lee County Commissioners today approved the following items during its regular weekly meeting. They are: Pretrial Services - Approved funding to expand Court Administration's Pretrial Services Program to operate 24 hours/7 days per week (24/7). The cost is $531,000 a year, or $265,000 for the remaining six months of fiscal year 2004-05 (expanded program would begin April 1). The Lee County Sheriff's Office is paying for 25 percent of the cost. The expansion of Pretrial Services is designed to better evaluate/screen jail prisoners upon intake, increasing those released on their own recognizance or through supervised programs, thus freeing up jail beds and delaying future jail system expansion costs. Through target outcomes agreed to by Court Administration, the goals is to increase the number of inmates on supervised release from 1,575 currently to 2,511 in 2008 (an increase of 936). At a conservative cost of $50 a day per prisoner, with an average stay of 20 days, the 936 added inmates would be about $936,000 savings/cost containment. With the program's annual cost of $530,000, you would reach a breakeven/return on investment at 530 additional inmates - or 2,105 on supervised release - in early 2008. Using this formula, savings in the first four years would be: 2005 - $79,000 (cost $265,000) 2006 - $244,000 (cost $530,000) 2007 - $517,000 (cost $530,000) 2008 - $936,000 (cost $530,000) The real savings, however, is cost containment of having to open up additional floors, or portions of floors, in future jail expansions. Staffing a new floor can cost several million dollars and portions of a floor can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The longer you can delay these expansions, the more you can save in future costs. In addition, the program gives the judges the information that they need to make accurate release decisions. The defendants released to the program will be either monitored and tracked or actually supervised depending upon their level of risk. Persons will be referred for needed alcohol, drug, and mental health problems. |