By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, December 21, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star B |NEWS | Page A03
Negotiations over a lawsuit aimed at reducing overcrowding at the Bergen County Jail have reached an impasse over funding, the state Public Advocate’s Office says.
The office is expected to go back to court to pursue a class action suit filed on behalf of prisoners against the state and Bergen County in 1988. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 3.
Negotiations, which had the advocate on one side and the state Attorney General’s Office and Bergen County on the other, had been going on for a year. Many issues, including a cap on the number of inmates, had been resolved, said Audrey Bomse, assistant deputy public advocate.
However, the talks broke down when the state and county feuded over who would pay the costs of meeting the terms of any agreement, Bomse said. “The hang-up is not coming from my end; the hang-up is coming from the county and the state. Both are saying the other should foot the bill,” she said.
State Corrections Department spokesman James Stabile declined to comment on the suit Friday. Bomse said the state maintains it does not have the money or space to move inmates who would be squeezed out of the jail as a result of the settlement. The county, however, says it could not make the improvements needed to meet the agreement at the current level of state funding.
Deputy Bergen County Counsel Murshell Johnson, who, with Bomse, holds out the possibility that an agreement can be reached before the court action resumes, confirmed that money is an issue holding up the settlement.
“You’ve got the executive order that gives the [corrections] commissioner power to house state prisoners in county facilities. However, the funding that is provided to house them is totally inadequate,” she said, adding that the $45 a day the state pays for each prisoner falls short of the $63 it costs the county to house an inmate.
Although it has a rated capacity of 423 inmates, the Bergen County Jail has 1,034. Under a state executive order signed in 1981 and renewed every six months, Bergen County is required to take 72 state prisoners. About 400 inmates are state prisoners.
Bomse said the state and county basically have agreed on a capacity of 800 inmates.
ID: 17364235 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)
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