Deal to house federal inmates in Linn County unresolved

CEDAR RAPIDS — The U.S. Marshals Service said it has made its “final offer” to pay the Linn County Jail $100 a day to house federal inmates there — a 16 percent increase, but not the 48 percent increase Sheriff Brian Gardner had asked for.

The Marshal Service for the Northern District of Iowa, responding to an article Friday in The Gazette about the agreement, said the rate it has offered is the highest in the district, but it would comply with the sheriff’s desire to end the agreement later this month if he wants.

“The USMS would like to house prisoners at the Linn County Correctional Center, but will follow the request of the Sheriff to remove them by Jan. 20, 2024,” Christopher Barther, the U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Iowa, wrote to the Linn County Board of Supervisors.

The two sides have long been attempting to renegotiate the deal for housing federal inmates at the county jail, which Gardner said has faced significant cost increases since the original agreement.

The deal has substantial implications for the county. Both the existing agreement and the proposed — and rejected — new proposal allowed for the jail to house up to 125 federal inmates per day. If the Linn County Jail had housed all 125 federal inmates daily under the current $86 per-diem agreement, it would have been paid $3.92 million in one year. Under the $100 proposed agreement, the county could be paid up to $4.56 million per year.

Gardner told The Gazette the two agencies have been in negotiations over the intergovernmental agreement since December 2022. Because of the lack of agreement, the sheriff on Dec. 21 sent the Marshals Service a notice of his intent to terminate the deal — giving the service until Jan. 20 to either reach a new deal or remove all federal inmates from the Linn County Jail.

A statement Friday from Nicholas Bonifazi, the supervisory deputy of the U.S. Marshal’s Service for the Northern District of Iowa, said the intergovernmental agreement can be terminated by either party at any time, with a 30-day notice.

The agreement does not have an expiration date, but does specify that the per-diem rate for inmates and the transportation hourly rate — the amount paid to the jail per hour spent by jail staff transporting and guarding federal inmates outside of the jail — may be renegotiated after 48 months.

The 48-month period ended in October, meaning the per-diem rate of $86 and transportation hourly rate of $43 could be renegotiated.

But the Sheriff’ Office requested an earlier renegotiation in December 2022 because of significant cost increases, according to Gardner. The Marshals Service agreed to do the early review.

It made an offer to the Sheriff’s Office in September of the $100 per-diem rate and a $45 transportation hourly rate, which the sheriff did not accept, according to Bonifazi. The Sheriff’s Office had requested a $127 rate when it asked to review the agreement in 2022.

In fiscal 2023, the Marshals Service paid the county $2.49 million to house inmates. Gardner said there were more than 100 federal inmates in the jail during most of the fiscal year, but recently there have been fewer than 30.

The Marshals Service contested this number, stating there have been less than 100 federal prisoners at the jail for over a year, and nearly every reduction was made at the jail’s request. In his email to the supervisors, Barther wrote that the service has been removing prisoners recently only because of the sheriff’s letter of intent to terminate the agreement.

Gardner said Friday the number of federal inmates has decreased over the past few years for several reasons, including the pandemic. Several months ago, one of the cell blocks in the jail — which housed mostly federal inmates — closed down for a few weeks because of plumbing issues. Many federal inmates were removed, and the numbers haven’t rebounded, Gardner said.

“We’re certainly not bringing in the revenue that we ever brought in before, and it’s my impression and understanding that those numbers were not going to regenerate back to where they used to be,” Gardner said.

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