DELAWARE — The Delaware County Sheriff’s Office will continue to house federal detainees after renewing its agreement with the United States Marshals Service.
The Delaware County Commissioners approved the renewed agreement at their regular Monday meeting.
“Since the late 1980s, Delaware County has had a contract with the ability to hold prisoners for the United States Marshals Service,” Sheriff Jeff Balzer explained.
“That contract occasionally needs to be updated, and we need to renegotiate the rates. That’s what we’ve done.”
The previous rate for a federal prisoner to be housed at the Delaware County Jail was $83 per day, with a transportation rate of $36 an hour.
The new rates are $102 per day to house a federal prisoner, with a transportation rate of $49.50.
“Throughout the years, this has been useful not just to us, but to our partners at the U.S. Marshals Service to be able to hold some prisoners up here in Delaware County,” Balzer said.
The agreement brought in over $1.4 million to the county since 2020, which Balzer said helps with jail maintenance costs.
Balzer also said this contract will last three years, which is shorter than the previous five-year contract. This will allow the Sheriff’s Office to renegotiate the rates sooner to better keep pace with inflation.
“We believe that we’ll be in a position to possibly increase that rate, because of our costs, within the next few years,” Balzer said.
He said the newly-approved rates reflect an increase in covering the costs of a single prisoner.
Over the last few years, Balzer said the jail has seen an average of 10 federal prisoners a year.
In 2012 the jail housed 70 federal detainees, their highest number, which Balzer said was too many because it disrupted the classification system.
The classification system separates inmates based on their offense, criminal history and other factors to house them appropriately.
Jail has never held ICE detainees
“Every single contract [from 1988 to the most recent 2020] has on there that we could hold prisoners not only for the U.S. Marshals Service but also for immigration related offenses — we just never have done that,” Balzer previously told Delaware Source.
His comment was in response to a report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio about federal immigration partnerships between local law enforcement and federal authorities.
After the report published, the ACLU of Ohio stated they sent “cautionary letters” to all Ohio entities that have at least one type of immigration related contract urging them to rescind all current engagements.
Balzer declined the request in April, stating the nonprofit’s work was “accurate, but incomplete.”
The contract does include a clause to house ICE detainees, but the Sheriff’s Office did not choose to renew it in hopes to house those detainees, but rather to continue the partnership that brings money into the jail to help “defray costs,” Balzer said.
“We should do everything we can to support the federal government, U.S. Marshals. And I won’t say more than that; you know what I’m talking about,” Commissioner Gary Merrell said.
