Linn County Jail to start housing federal inmates after terminating agreement last year

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Linn County Sheriff’s Office will resume housing federal inmates at the jail in Cedar Rapids one year after ending its previous agreement with the United States Marshals Service.

The sheriff’s office ended the previous intergovernmental agreement in January 2024 after a disagreement about the cost to house federal inmates.

The Marshals Service had been paying the sheriff’s office a rate of $86 per inmate, per day, and the sheriff’s office requested that rate be increased to $127. The Marshals Service gave its final offer of $100 per day, and the sheriff’s office declined, stating that it cost the jail $115 per day to house an inmate.

The jail had been housing federal inmates for the U.S. Marshals Service since the facility opened in 1984.

The new agreement includes a per diem rate of $140, but with the change that the sheriff’s office will transport federal inmates to medical appointments and the courthouse, rather than relying on the Marshals Service to transport its inmates. The sheriff’s office did transport federal inmates as part of its previous contract, up until 2022 when the Marshals took over that responsibility to help the sheriff’s office cut down on excessive overtime.

The sheriff’s office will be reimbursed for the time officers spend transporting federal inmates at a rate of $53 per hour, increased from the previous rate of $43 per hour.

The per-diem rate and hourly transportation rates are fixed through the three-year agreement. After three years, the sheriff’s office can request a rate adjustment.

The new agreement was signed by Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner in December and by Tiffani Eason, a United States Marshals Service assistant chief, on Jan. 14.

Federal inmates won’t be moved into the jail until Feb. 1, and the agreement estimates there will be about 70 federal prisoners in the jail at a time. The previous agreement allowed for up to 125 federal inmates to be held in the jail each day.

County hiring additional deputy to help with inmate transportation

Gardner spoke at a work session of the Linn County Board of Supervisors Dec. 16 to request permission to hire an additional deputy to help fulfill the transportation requirements of the new agreement. The request was approved as part of the board’s consent agenda in a formal meeting Dec. 18.

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“I realize this is an out of cycle request, but unfortunately in order to comply with the (intergovernmental agreement), it’s imperative that we get this position in order to allow that to occur, and not put us back in that situation where we were several years ago, where the forced overtime for our deputies was such that, actually, people were leaving our employment because they couldn’t handle that any longer,” Gardner told the supervisors at the work session.

The new position will cost the department $113,000 including salary and benefits, Gardner told The Gazette.

After ending the agreement with the Marshals Service last year, the Linn County Jail started housing inmates for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, at a $60 per diem rate. Gardner told the county supervisors that the agreement between the two counties will continue even with the new agreement with the Marshals Service and that “those inmates that we’re housing for Johnson County will not be impacted.”

The Linn County Supervisors expressed appreciation for the work the sheriff’s office has done to arrange the new agreement during the December work session.

“I know that there were a lot of negotiations going on back and forth,” Supervisor Kirsten Running-Marquardt said in the meeting. “I really feel comfortable moving forward with this, and I appreciate you working with the U.S. Marshals and others to make sure there’s a contract that is fair and reasonable for Linn County.”

Officials from the Marshals Service declined to comment on the new agreement.

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com