Schuylkill Commissioners Desperately Want Pre-release Prison Fever Dream to Come True

Lately, it seems Schuylkill County Commissioners are trying extra hard to prove to the public how badly they need to build a pre-release prison.

There are many names for this type of facility being used. Most don’t use the term “prison” but any place where people are sent and not allowed to leave, by law, without permission is most definitely a prison. No sugar-coating can change that.

This pre-release prison has been on Commissioners current and past’s wish list for decades now. But when it comes to pulling the trigger on OK’ing the money to build it, Commissioners consistently get the yips.

It definitely seems like the push is on once again to get this facility built. The Commissioners don’t know where it’ll be built and they really haven’t said how they’re going to pay for it. And no one is answering the question on how, if and when it’s built, the County is going to pay to operate it on an annual basis.

The numbers to build it are staggering. And the numbers to operate it year after year in perpetuity are going to be huge, too, and will never decrease; that’s for sure.

But it seems like now, more than in decades past, the push is on to get this done. And the only realistic way it’ll probably get done is if the Schuylkill County taxpayer is footing the bill.

The Push to Build a Pre-release Prison in Schuylkill County

It’s very obvious that the Commissioners are trying to lay it on really thick that they believe this pre-release prison is a necessity.

However, it’s also very obvious that those same Commissioners, unless they’ve secretly planted a money tree somewhere, don’t have the funds to build it or operate it.

Will that stop them?

In just the last month, the signs are very clear that this has become top priority at the Courthouse.

Election Winners Say They’re In on Pre-release Prison

Let’s go back to Election Night. In an interview with The Canary at their victory celebration, Commissioner Boots Hetherington and Commissioner-elect Larry Padora both said a pre-release prison is one of their top priorities.

Commissioner Gary Hess, who also won election this year, has also said numerous times that he’s in favor of a pre-release prison.

In a post-election interview with The Canary, Hess said he believes the County government could save money in the long run, a “lot of money” in fact, by building and operating a pre-release prison over continuing to send inmates elsewhere.

So, if it ever came to a vote in the near future, it’s hard to find a dissenting voice among the three of them on moving forward with the project.

Big Bucks Budget Adjustment

Then, just two days after the election, at their next Commissioners meeting, the board approved a whopping $520,000 budget adjustment for the prison. And $445,000 of that is going toward outsourcing inmates from the local jail to other counties to ease overcrowding here.

Commissioners have said there wouldn’t be such an overcrowding problem with a pre-release prison locally. They say many of the people in Schuylkill County Prison are there on non-violent drug offenses and would be better served being in a pre-release prison.

That’s debatable but what is certain is if that overflow from the existing prison were sent to a pre-release prison in Schuylkill County, it would seem to justify the need the Commissioners say we have for such a facility.

Another $75,000 of that big budget adjustment is to cover expected wages and overtime payments to prison staff between the date this money was approved and the end of 2023.

While the Commissioners and County officials usually speak the bare minimum on these budget adjustments, this one seemed to spark a long conversation. Suddenly, they’re all so willing to freely talk about this money. Interesting when they’re often so tight-lipped.

On that $445,000 budget adjustment, County Finance Director Paul Buber told Commissioners, “There was money included in the budget for this year but the anticipated cost or expense is going to be greater than what was budgeted and therefore, this is the best good faith estimate in terms of what will be needed between now and the end of the year.”

Engineer Contract Extended on Pre-release Prison

Just last week, the Commissioners approved a contract extension with the firm of Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates. The County has turned to this firm several times in the past. And its job is to conduct a “needs assessment and analysis” for a hypothetical pre-release prison.

That contract, which expired at the end of September, was extended until March 2024.

It’s Obvious They Want to Do It: But Will They, How Will They, Where Will They, and Should They?

These are just the examples of this push in the last few weeks. But this has been a fever dream of the County government’s for some time.

The Commissioners don’t really have to sell the public on the idea of it – they’ve proven time and again they’ll do something even if it’s not popular – but it seems they want to do that so you think they’re doing a great job.

They also want to do this in a way where, if they come to you looking for more money in order to fund this project, you won’t mind shelling out more in order to get it built and running.

So, will they? Yes, if they can all get on the same page about it. Absolutely.

How will they? They’re probably just going to come to you for the money. We’ve already shown and they’ve admitted they have no extra money laying around to fund this.

The 2024 budget proposal came up more than $10 million short, by their own admission. And that shortfall was plugged by using dwindling COVID relief funds. Once that’s gone, the answer on how the Commissioners plan to build this facility, first, becomes that much trickier.

Heck, the question on how to fund the government sans pre-release prison will be tricky to answer without those COVID bucks on standby.

But let’s assume they’ve already decided that this is definitely going to happen. They’ve plucked their money tree and gathered the funds to build a pre-release prison. Where will they build it?

One of the top options right now seems to be using the former Schuylkill Transportation System headquarters in the St. Clair Industrial Park. This plan falls right in line with their penchant for taking or keeping potentially lucrative commercial properties off the market and a non-taxable property.

Remember, there were rumors swirling that they were going to buy the former GIANT grocery store in downtown Pottsville to put this pre-release prison there until everyone and their mothers told them that was a dreadful idea.

Now, How to Fund a Pre-release Prison in Schuylkill County

Whether it’s here, there, or anywhere in Schuylkill County, the Commissioners will be faced with a more pressing problem … How in the world are they going to pay for this?

The Commissioners love to say that the County is losing so much money by outsourcing inmates from Schuylkill County Prison to other facilities in other counties.

Depending on how much the person believes we should build this new pre-release prison is how much they’ll tell you it costs.

But do the numbers really add up to their hysteria? Not really.

Now, we’re not factoring in the cost of Sheriff’s Dept. employees actually driving the inmates to these out-of-county lockups. However, we can assure you that that cost plus the actual cost the Prison endures through temporary housing of these inmates elsewhere pales in comparison to what a pre-release prison would cost to build and operate.

We examined a year’s worth of prison financial statements and learned that between December 2022 and October 2023, Schuylkill County spent $1,351,204.73 on temporary housing (out-of-county) of inmates.

	Temporary housing spent ($)	Avg. inmates outsourced
December 2022	70,149.36	42
January 2023	0	56
February 2023	59,034.32	56
March 2023	45,612.64	60
April 2023	285,805.49	66
May 2023	151,458.87	72
June 2023	166,456.96	77
July 2023	174,046.21	65
August 2023	153,276.03	58
September 2023	135,114.85	58
October 2023	110,250.00	53
Average/month	122,836.79	60.3
TOTAL	1,351,204.73

During that Nov. 9 meeting, Commissioner George Halcovage asked Buber some questions about pre-release prison costs. His line of questioning seems to indicate he’s opposed to building the facility, especially if it doesn’t make financial sense.

First, he noted that an historic evaluation of the cost vs. cost analysis of outsourcing inmates vs. housing them locally in a pre-release center indicated that Schuylkill County would have to spend at least $2 million a year on outsourcing to make it financially viable to build a pre-release center. Buber agreed.

Note the number we just revealed and realize that $1.3 million is well shy of $2 million.

Buber also noted for Halcovage that the $2 million figure was from several years ago but more importantly, it only covered the brick-and-mortar expense of building the pre-release prison.

Halcovage asked Buber how much, approximately, it cost to run Schuylkill County Prison on an annual basis. Buber, without hard numbers in hand at the time, agreed with an estimate that it costs $9 million to operate the local jail every year.

The soon-to-be ex-Commissioner suggested that a pre-release prison could cost in the neighborhood of another $7 million to operate.

Even if that number isn’t completely accurate, it will cost in the millions to operate and cost the County money in terms of things it annually bemoans and frankly, can’t afford … employees and their benefits. Those are costs that won’t ever come down.

This is a Fever Dream

Unfortunately, at least in terms of this particular subject, the one Commissioner of late that appears to be at least asking the right questions about the potential for a pre-release prison in Schuylkill County – Halcovage – isn’t going to be around for much longer.

Soon, we’ll have 3 Commissioners who are on somewhat of the same page when it comes to this idea and moving forward with it. But is it the right page?

One of the main reasons so many people who’ve walked the halls of the Courthouse believe that building and operating a pre-release prison is a good idea is because the people who came before them thought it was a great idea and failed to get it done.

“Getting it done” is now the hill on which everyone in the future will die on trying to get this built.

However, the reason so many failed, as some see it, to get it done is a lack of money. And that’s a problem that still very much exists within Schuylkill County government. But at some point, three Commissioners are going to eventually vote to approve this idea and you’ll be the one left holding the bag to pay for it.

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