Senate Bill No. 140

(By Senator Love, Dawson and Ross)

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[Introduced January 19, 2000; referred to the Committee on Government Organization; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section ten, article twenty, chapter thirty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to the regional jail and correctional facility authority; providing a mechanism allowing the authority to collect per diem charges from counties and municipalities; and allowing moneys due counties and municipalities in possession of the state to be applied to amounts due for the per diem charges.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section ten, article twenty, chapter thirty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 20. WEST VIRGINIA REGIONAL JAIL AND CORRECTIONAL FACILITY AUTHORITY.

§31-20-10. Regional jail and correctional facility development fund.
(a) The regional jail and correctional facility development fund is hereby created continued and shall be is composed of special accounts in the state treasury. The fund shall operate operates as a revolving fund whereby all appropriations and payments to the fund may be applied and reapplied by the authority for the purposes of this article. Separate accounts may be established within the fund for the purpose of identification of various revenue resources and payment of specific obligations. These separate accounts may be used for purposes that include, but are not limited to, the construction, renovation or repair of specific facilities, cash control, facility maintenance and for the individual operating accounts of facilities operated by the authority. The authority may create other separate accounts within the fund that it determines are necessary for the efficient operation of the authority.
(b) Revenues deposited into the fund shall be used to make payments of interest and shall be pledged as security for bonds, security interests or notes issued or lease-purchase obligations entered into with another state entity by the authority pursuant to this article.
(c) Whenever the authority determines that the balance in the fund is in excess of the immediate requirements of this article, it may request that the excess be invested until needed. In this case the excess shall be invested in a manner consistent with the investment of temporary state funds. Interest earned on any money invested pursuant to this section shall be credited to the fund.
(d) If the authority determines that funds held in the fund are in excess of the amount needed to carry out the purposes of this article, it shall take any action that is necessary to release the excess and transfer it to the general revenue fund of the state treasury.
(e) The fund shall consist consists of the following:
(1) Amounts raised by the authority by the sale of bonds or other borrowing authorized by this article;
(2) Moneys collected and deposited in the state treasury which are specifically designated by acts of the Legislature for inclusion into the fund;
(3) Contributions, grants and gifts from any source, both public and private, which may be used by the authority for any project or projects;
(4) All sums paid by the counties and municipalities pursuant to subsection (h) of this section; and
(5) All interest earned on investments made by the state from moneys deposited in this fund.
(f) The amounts deposited in the fund shall be accounted for and expended in the following manner:
(1) Amounts raised by the sale of bonds or other borrowing authorized by this article shall be deposited in a separate account within the fund and expended for the purpose of construction, renovation and repair of correctional facilities, regional jails and juvenile detention and correctional facilities for which need has been determined by the authority;
(2) Amounts deposited from all other sources shall be pledged first to the debt service on any bonded indebtedness, including lease-purchase obligations entered into by the authority with another state entity or other obligation incurred by borrowing of the authority;
(3) After any requirements of debt service have been satisfied, the authority shall requisition from the fund the amounts that are necessary to provide for payment of the administrative expenses of this article;
(4) The authority shall requisition from the fund after any requirements of debt service have been satisfied the amounts that are necessary for the maintenance and operation of the correctional facilities or regional jails or both that are constructed pursuant to the provisions of this article and shall expend those amounts for that purpose. The fund shall make an accounting of all amounts received from each county by virtue of any filing fees, court costs or fines required by law to be deposited in the fund and amounts from the jail improvement funds of the various counties. After the expenses of administration have been deducted, the amounts expended in the respective regions from those sources shall be in proportion to the percentage the amount contributed to the fund by the counties in each region bears to the total amount received by the fund from those sources;
(5) Notwithstanding any other provisions of this article, sums paid into the fund by each county and municipality pursuant to subsection (h) of this section for each inmate shall be placed in a separate account and shall be requisitioned from the fund to pay for costs incurred at the regional jail facility at which each inmate was incarcerated; and
(6) Any amounts deposited in the fund from other sources permitted by this article shall be expended in the respective regions based on particular needs to be determined by the authority.
(g) After a regional jail facility becomes available pursuant to this article for the incarceration of inmates, each county within the region shall incarcerate all persons whom the county would have incarcerated in any jail prior to the availability of the regional jail facility in the regional jail facility except those whose incarceration in a local jail facility used as a local holding facility is specified as appropriate under the standards and procedures developed pursuant to section nine of this article and who the sheriff or the circuit court elects to incarcerate therein.
(h) (1) When inmates are placed in a regional jail facility pursuant to subsection (g) of this section, or at the request of a municipality, the county or the municipality shall pay into the regional jail and correctional facility development fund a cost per day for each incarcerated inmate to be determined by the regional jail and correctional facility authority according to criteria and by procedures established by legislative rules proposed for promulgation pursuant to article three, chapter twenty-nine-a of this code to cover the costs of operating the regional jail facilities of this state to maintain each inmate. The per diem costs for incarcerating inmates may not include the cost of construction, acquisition or renovation of the regional jail facilities: Provided, That each regional jail facility operating in this state shall keep a record of the date and time that an inmate is incarcerated, and a county or municipality may not be charged for a second day of incarceration for an individual inmate until that inmate has remained incarcerated for more than twenty-four hours. Thereafter, in cases of continuous incarceration, subsequent per diem charges shall be made upon a county or municipality only as subsequent intervals of twenty-four hours pass from the original time of incarceration.
(2) The authority shall give to the counties and municipalities that use regional jail facilities for the incarceration of inmates a statement for the per diem costs as soon as practicable after the costs are incurred. It is the duty of the county or municipality, as the case may be, to pay the costs promptly. Until paid, the total amount is a debt against the county or municipality due the state. Whenever there is in the state treasury a sum of money due any such county or municipality from any source, it shall be applied to the debt owed at the request of the authority. The fact of the application shall be reported by the auditor to the county or municipality. The report is the receipt for the amount so applied.

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to give the Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority a way to collect delinquent per diem charges owed by counties and municipalities. The bill allows money due any county or municipality in the state treasury to be applied to the amount owed.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.