Tucson inmates could be bused to Santa Cruz jail

Tucson inmates convicted of misdemeanor charges may end up serving their sentences in Nogales.

The city of Tucson and Santa Cruz County are working on an agreement that would send inmates with sentences of 10 days or more down Interstate 19 to Nogales, where the cost of housing inmates is less than at the Pima County jail.

For each inmate sent to jail by Tucson City Court judges, Pima County charges Tucson a $279 booking fee and $85 for each additional day, said Deputy City Manager Martha Durkin.

Those rates reflect a “dramatic increase” since 2007, when the county charged the city a $166 booking fee and a $57 daily fee for city inmates, she said.

Under the proposed agreement, Santa Cruz County would not charge a booking fee and the daily fee would amount to $65 plus any medical costs, said Charlene Laplante, chief civil deputy county attorney for Santa Cruz County.

The city of Tucson is projecting to pay Pima County $6.97 million for housing inmates in the current fiscal year, up by about $330,000 from the previous year.

“If we can reduce that by going to Santa Cruz County at $65 and no fee for the first day, we think we can capture significant savings,” Durkin said.

Pima County does not specify in its bills to the city how many inmates have sentences of 10 days or more, so the city does not know how many would be sent to Santa Cruz, Durkin said.

Only inmates convicted of misdemeanors and sentenced to more than 10 days would be sent to Santa Cruz, she said. Those with shorter sentences or convicted of felonies would stay at the Pima County jail.

The proposed agreement is up for consideration at the Dec. 15 meeting of the Tucson City Council, she said.

Durkin and Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada characterized the proposal as a “win-win.”

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“We’re looking forward to it. We’ve got room at the inn,” Estrada quipped about the 372-bed jail in Nogales.

For Santa Cruz, the “win” would be more revenue to help pay off the debt incurred to build the jail in 2011, he said.

The sales-tax revenue intended to pay off the loan dwindled during the economic recession, Estrada said, and revenue from $65 daily fees to house federal inmates, mostly illegal border crossers, has been inconsistent.

“As long as we have the space and the beds, we’ll try to accommodate them the best we can,” Estrada said.

In a separate revenue bump, the Santa Cruz jail already is holding 22 inmates who were relocated from the state prison in Kingman that closed after riots in July, he said.

The proposed agreement does not carry with it any obligations for the city of Tucson, Durkin said. The city can stop sending inmates to Santa Cruz if the savings don’t appear.

Other options

Meanwhile, the city is working on several other programs to help lessen the jail bill, she said.

Tucson created alternative-to-jail programs to reduce the number of inmates sent to the Pima County jail, such as home detention, diversion, and arraigning misdemeanor defendants immediately upon arrest, Durkin said.

The city also expanded the electronic monitoring program to include domestic violence, shoplifting, disorderly conduct and other charges, Durkin said.

One of the issues still being worked out is how the inmates will arrive at the Santa Cruz jail. Those sentenced while out of custody would report to the Santa Cruz jail, but in-custody inmates would need to be bused to Nogales.