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Citizens
for Better Government
Blount
County Tennessee
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Berrong / Bennett federal prisoner scheme will cost taxpayers millions
Buried in the new budget to be voted on by the Commission this month is a $7 million addition to the jail. But, wait a minute, the jail is not even at half of its capacity with county prisoners.
Finance Director Bennett and Sheriff Berrong want to build a new $7 million pod for the County jail so they can take in more Federal prisoners. The County is under no obligation to house these prisoners. Sheriff Berrong says: “Financially, it has a lot of advantages for the taxpayer”. Finance Director Bennett claims the new jail pod will generate “$1.2 million over cost”. Bennett’s and Berrong’s numbers are pure nonsense.
Don’t get too excited when Sheriff Berrong talks about numbers. After more than a year, he is still trying to explain how many vehicles he has, and where the 36 vehicles missing from his fleet, disappeared to. Similarly, Finance Director Bennett is the official who recently failed to notice that five Sheriff’s vehicles, sold ten years ago, were still on the County books.
Not surprisingly, their great “deal” for the taxpayer does not stand up to the simplest financial scrutiny.
The latest state audit report on the county says (see page 290) that it cost the county $54 per day to keep a prisoner in FY-07. In the new FY-09 budget, the Sheriff will spend $1 million more on the jail than he spent in FY-07. This raises the cost of keeping a prisoner to $60.81 per day in FY-09. According to Bennett, the Federal Government pays the County $58.50 per day to house each Federal prisoner. These figures make it very clear that the citizens of Blount County are losing money on every Federal prisoner. Why then do we want to add $7 million more to the County’s burgeoning $215 million debt to build a jail pod to house another 120 Federal prisoners, on which the citizens will lose even more money?
A review of the state audit report shows the Berrong / Bennett scheme to make money for the county by taking in Federal prisoners, has been failing the taxpayers for years. For the period FY-03 through FY-07, the audit report tells us that the Bennett / Berrong Federal prisoner scheme cost Blount County citizens more than $1.6 million. And this cost is understated, because it does not include the costs of communications, utilities, insurance, vehicles, etc., which are not included in the jail budget. The $1.6 million loss also does not include the cost of recapturing escaped prisoners, or the costs of dealing with the crime that comes to town with visitors and cronies of Federal inmates.
Why are Bennett and Berrong risking the lives of Maryville College faculty and students, and others who live near the jail, by taking in Federal prisoners? Why are we turning Maryville into Brushy Mountain East? Is this the Bennett / Berrong formula for economic development of the county? More likely, it has to do with providing more patronage jobs to enable Berrong, Bennett and Cunningham to keep their political machine humming. The fact that it will cost the citizens of the County a few million dollars is just the price we will have to pay for their greatness.
In short, this jail pod proposal will do nothing but hurt the hard working taxpayers of the county. It should be voted down by any thinking Commissioner. Please call your Commissioners and let them know that this jail pod scheme is a very bad idea.