City of Merritt picking up $37,000 shortfall to house prisoners

The City of Merritt says it’s shouldering too much of the cost to house provincial prisoners in the cells at the Merritt police detachment.

Last year, the city absorbed a $37,209 shortfall sheltering prisoners.

The provincial government doesn’t fully reimburse the city for the cost of housing provincial prisoners. In 2015, the city received a rate that averaged $7.06 per hour per prisoner from the government despite it costing the city $14.61, which is more than twice the amount received.

“As soon as we have one person in a cell we have to have a guard there, so you can imagine what that costs an hour, plus if they’re there for any length of time they have to be fed and everything else,” City of Merritt director of finance, Sheila Thiessen, told the Herald.

There was a total of approximately 10,500 hours of incarceration accumulated at the cells last year — 47 per cent of which were for provincial prisoners.

Prisoner maintenance costs totalled $153,280 in 2015. The total provincial share was $72,031.36, but the government only reimbursed the city $34,821.

Thiessen said if a person is apprehended within the city limits, he or she is considered a municipal prisoner until arraigned in court, which is usually within 24 hours.

If captured just outside the city, they are considered a provincial prisoner right away.

The city wants a better hourly rate.

“It just needs to be grounded a bit more in reality,” Thiessen said. “Municipalities as a whole are looking at [this]. I would think that they would like to see it more realistically set.”

The province determines the rate it pays based on the average cost to house a prisoner in the province, which isn’t fair Thiessen told the Herald.

The City of Merritt intends to discuss the issue at the Southern Interior Local Government Association (SILGA) in Kelowna this April, and at the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) conference this September in Victoria.