Jail outsourcing costs up half a million from previous year

Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra reads a report from the Sheriff’s Office during Hays County Commissioners Court that outlines the jail population and outsourcing costs for the previous week. The Sheriff’s Office provided outsourcing costs for this Fiscal Year and the previous Fiscal year (except for June and July), which shows that outsourcing costs have gone up approximately half a million dollars total compared to the same time period last year.

The most recent report read in commissioners court was for the week of July 28 to August 3.

“The Sheriff’s Office sends my office a report of our inmate population,” Becerra said. “Our current capacity is 410 inmates. Jail Standards recommends holding approximately 10% of that population open, which lowers our capacity to 368. The jail’s daily average was 563, and peak was 566 on July 29. … The average number of outsourced males is 264 and females are two.”

Becerra said the estimated cost for outsourcing inmates the week of July 28 to August 3 was $171,066.

“This week's inmates were housed in the following counties: Comal, Haskell and Maverick,” Becerra said. “We are holding 51 paper-ready inmates, which are those inmates that have gone through our judicial system, had their day in court and are now state inmates.”

The total outsourcing costs for all of July for last year was $659,468, which means that 25.94% of that was spent for one week in July of this year. Outsourcing costs are similar to the same amount for July in both 2023 and 2024 as the only available data for July 2024 is from July 28 through August 3.

There is comparison data available for all months that have passed this year other than June and July. The County’s Fiscal Year, and simultaneously each budget cycle, begins in October. When comparing outsourcing costs from October to May of Fiscal Year 2023 to October to May of Fiscal Year 2024, there has been $500,381 more spent on outsourcing costs. Outsourcing cost comparisons for the months provided for Fiscal Year 2023 and 2024 are as follows: Oct. FY 2023 — $592,217, Oct. FY 2024 — $753,344, Nov. FY 2023 — $673,392, Nov. FY 2024 — $767,339, Dec. FY 2023 — $717,795, Dec. FY 2024 — $785,506, Jan. FY 2023 — $750,838, Jan. FY 2024 — $763,108, Feb. FY 2023 — $707,483, Feb. FY 2024 — $710,819, March FY 2023 — $622,097, March FY 2024 — $691,930, April FY 2023 — $630,363, April FY 2024 — $695,997 and May FY 2023 — $619,978, May FY 2023 — $646,501.

The Vera Institute of Justice Hays County Jail Dashboard gives information on charge class and length of stay for the inmates in custody. The dashboard was updated on August 10. Of the inmate population charge class, 93.4% are held on felonies. 0.4% are held on misdemeanors and 0.2% are unspecified. 435 people or 78% of the jail population are held pretrial. As for pretrial length of stay, 9.7% have been held for less than a week. 20.2% have been held from one week to under a month. 48% have been held from one month to under six months. 16.1% have been held from six months to under a year. 5.5% have been held from one year to under three years. 0.5% have been held for more than three years.

The Vera Dashboard gave data on the length of stay for inmates that have already been sentenced or “paper ready inmates.” 3.3% have been held for less than a week. 15.4% have been held from one week to under a month. 56.1% have been held for one month to under three months. 20.3% have been held for six months to under a year. 4.9% have been held for one year to under three years.

To learn more about the Hays County Jail inmate population go to hayscountytx. com/vera-institute- of-justice-dashboard.