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The Indiana Department of Correction will begin sending payments to dozens of counties on Monday to cover costs for housing state prisoners, ending months of delays that left local jails without reimbursements.
“In recent months, the Indiana Department of Correction has been working to ensure calculations of any money owed to the counties are accurate,” DOC spokesperson Annie Goeller said in a statement to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
She explained that two separate streams of payments are at issue: funding tied to Level 6 felony diversions, and per diem reimbursements for state prisoners held in county jails awaiting transfer.
Level 6 offenders used to be sent to state prisons until a criminal justice overhaul in 2013. After that, low-level felons were kept in local jails at state expense.
Goeller said the outstanding costs associated with Level 6 diversions were governed by a funding formula established by the General Assembly in 2019.
“This formula has since become outdated and no longer reflects current data, resulting in overpayments to several counties,” she said.
To resolve that, DOC will forgive those debts rather than seek repayment, Goeller said.
In total, the department will forgive about $7.7 million in overpayments across 51 counties, including large amounts in Kosciusko County, which was overpaid nearly $599,000; Greene County, which was overpaid more than $254,000; and Clark County, where the overpayment was about $264,000, according to a DOC payment summary provided to the Capital Chronicle.
The department will also resume reimbursements for jail holds, where inmates who have been convicted of state crimes remain in county jails until DOC picks them up.
State law requires pickup within five days, but counties are reimbursed at a daily rate for each additional day an inmate is held.
The General Assembly raised that per diem earlier this year, and Goeller said DOC currently owes counties “approximately $6.1 million to 41 counties for these holds.”
“The department will begin reimbursing these counties immediately,” she added.
The largest payments are set to go to several northern Indiana counties with high numbers of state holds.
Elkhart County is owed more than $638,000 for 34,024 days of holds, while St. Joseph County is owed nearly $397,000 for 21,910 days. In Lake County, where 13,463 hold days were recorded, the reimbursement totals just under $178,000.
Additionally, Delaware County will receive roughly $216,000 and Vigo County about $290,000 — both for more than 10,000 days of holds. Hendricks County, meanwhile, is set to receive more than $171,000.
Other counties are owed smaller amounts, such as Monroe County at about $53,000; Jennings County at nearly $27,000; and Fountain County at about $39,000, the DOC summary shows.
Goeller said the reimbursements will come in a single distribution next week, and that “money will come from IDOC’s budget, which includes funding for jail payments.”
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