FARMINGTON – On June 27, the last supper will be prepared at the Franklin County Detention Center.
That change and many more, including the eight and half positions to be cut, are all part of the transition from county jail to holding facility the state has made to consolidate services in an effort to save money.
The county jail employs 17 corrections officers, three administration office staff workers and two cooks for, at peak times, the 45 inmates that have been housed up to nine months at the facility over the years.
The state’s Board of Corrections set a budget cap when it took over the county jail budget last year at $1.6 million. When the facility becomes a 72-hour temporary holding facility, a budget total of $965,415 is expected for a projected savings of $700,000.
That budget will be presented to the DOC board on Wednesday, June 14 in Augusta and will either be accepted as submitted or revised for acceptance.
The overall plan is for the jail to serve as a temporary holding facility for those arrested and awaiting their first court appearance. Depending on the time of arrest, a defendant may get to court within a day or two at most, and then will be transferred to the new Somerset County jail in Skowhegan until bail is made or the next court date.
Once the last supper is served on June 27 at the Franklin County facility, all of the inmates will be transferred to Somerset County jail while the facility here gets a two-week facelift that includes interior painting, new floor tiles, two upper bunks will be removed and wall repairs are made.
During that two-week period, anyone arrested will still be booked and held for a short time until a transport can be arranged to Skowhegan and then will brought back for court.
Areas that formally served the jail, such as the intake, flex cells and day room will be turned into holding cells because they already have sinks and toilets in a secure area. With the additional space, nine more cells will be added to the facility’s currently 27 cells. The detox room will serve as a short term, 6- to 12-hour, holding cell.
The maximum amount of time an inmate can stay at the Franklin County facility will be 72 hours once a court appearance has been made. Weekends and holidays aren’t counted in the 72-hour limit.
Transport to and from Somerset County jail to court here will mean more time on the road for both transport officers and inmates.
With the kitchen closed at the Franklin County jail, two cooks will be laid off. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, will come from area restaurants.
Two officers will be on duty around the clock. Ten of the current corrections officers are staying to fill the positions. Since only two officers are on duty at a time, county commissioners this week approved spending $3,000 for “man down” automatic alarms on the portable radios that will be carried by the officers, manager, custodian and dispatch center personnel next door at the sheriff’s office. If an officer gets into trouble, a switch activates a speaker and a GPS signals the location of the radio.
“It’s unsafe without some kind of back-up,” said Doug Blauvelt, the assistant jail administrator.
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In all this, veteran jail administrator Sandra Collins is working to establish new policies and procedures and standards of the new mission for a holding facility. The facility is supposed to be up and running by July 1 if all goes according to the latest plan.
Collins has been the top administrator here for 10 years. A 24-year employee of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department, she got her start as a file clerk and worked her way to assistant jail administrator with Dick Caton as administrator until he retired in 1999 and then she took over.
She said she was hoping the transition to holding facility would be longer in coming for she has four more years to work until she can retire.
“Up until three years ago I was really hoping it would happen slowly,” she said. The decision to close the jail was finalized in February this year.
With her job disappearing, Collins is applying for the detention center manager’s job, one of the very few offered, along with a custodial job.
In the meantime, morale at the facility has been “unsettled,” she said. With some employees getting laid off, three officers hired to work at the Somerset jail, the 10 officers staying on will be working under a new set of rules, and the uncertainty is the hardest part.
“It’s a good team but it isn’t easy,” she said.
After all of this, Sheriff Dennis Pike takes issue with the fact that Franklin County is the only county in the state to have its jail closed.
“We’re the only ones in the state to be punished,” he said at the commissioner meeting this week. “And I mean to say punished.”
