ELYRIA — An extra $210,000 the state is giving to the Lorain County Adult Probation Department will help the county fend off the need for a new jail.

The money will allow Chief Probation Officer Bart Hobart to hire a case manager to work on reducing the population at the chronically overcrowded county jail and two other employees.

Hobart said the case manager will work with judges around the county to expedite cases and get low-level nonviolent offenders out on bond quicker. He said it also will address the issue of prisoners who make bond on their local cases but remain in the jail at the request of another jurisdiction.

The grant also will provide funding to buy GPS tracking and other electronic-monitoring devices that will allow probation officers to keep closer tabs on some of the defendants who are released, Hobart said.

County Common Pleas Judge Mark Betleski called the extra money going to the Adult Probation Department “perfect.”
“This expediter is an effort put forth to reduce or delay the need for a new jail,” he said.

Sheriff’s Capt. Rich Resendez said he was pleased to hear the jail will be getting someone to help speed cases through the system. Such a position was a key recommendation in a study of the jail the county commissioned several years ago and received in June.

“The ultimate goal is to reduce the average daily stay here,” he said.

The jail had 433 inmates on Wednesday, 11 more than its state mandated maximum occupancy of 422 prisoners.

Resendez said the average prisoner is at the jail between 22 days and 24 days at a cost of $92.56 per day.

With the expediter and other small fixes the jail study recommended, Resendez said the county could delay building a new jail, which could cost up to $75 million, for a decade or more.

“If we do these programs, it will extend our life here,” he said.

County Commissioner Ted Kalo said he’s not certain the fixes the jail study recommended will stave off the need for a new jail for more than six years or so, but he’s happy with the reprieve he believes the expediter will bring.

“It’s not that we’re going to be soft on crime, but some of the low-level offenders won’t be sitting there with the county picking up their medical bills and meals,” Kalo said.

The county, which implemented $6 million in budget cuts for this year, continues to struggle financially, Kalo said, and doesn’t have the money right now to even contemplate beginning the process necessary to build a new jail.

But if the economy improves and residents vote in November to make a 0.5 percent sales tax hike permanent, Kalo said the issue of a new jail can be revisited in a few years.

Hobart lost two clerical staffers during the layoffs that followed the county’s cuts. He said his 22 employees are responsible for monitoring between 900 and 1,000 probationers at any given time. Before the state agreed to give him extra money, Hobart said about $570,000 of his approximately $1.2 million budget came from the state.

In addition to the jail expediter, Hobart said the grant also will allow him to hire another probation officer and another case manager to help deal with the large volume of criminal non-support cases.

Betleski said the Lorain County has the fifth-highest rate of non-support offenders being sent to prison, something the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction wants to reduce.

Non-support offenders, like other low-level offenders, often spend only a few months in state prisons and the state wants to cut down on the number who are sent to it for short stints behind bars, Betleski said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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