Comments by Ron Paulyes | Eastern North Carolina Now

delma, you are right on target. don't back off anything you said. there are hundreds of jails, some small and some big, who overbuilt jails at great expense to the taxpayers. some of the overbuilt jails relied on projections of the architects/contractors - who obviously stood to gain financially if the county agreed their projections. others were overbuilt using the "entrepreneurial" angle - arguing that the jail manager could rent/lease the beds to other counties, the state and the feds. hundreds of these entrpreneurial jails are half empty as the rent/lease contracts never came about, or were cancelled, or were greatly over estimated. and since the cost of the jail was to be offset by the rent/lease revenues, the county taxpayer is again underwater as the rent/lease money is insufficient or in some cases - non-existent. gov't should never get into "business" using the taxpayer as their "investors" - thats not what gov't is about. if the state and the feds are renting beds now thats good because you get revenue. however, if the county needs more beds, all you need to do is cancel the state or fed contract, or revise it lower. there are literally hundreds of jails that "over reached", and their taxpayers are suffering those financial consequences. ps - plus when jail operation budgets go up due to expansion, when the jail has abundance of empty beds, the budgets are rarely "reduced". greta investigation work. great analysis. great conclusion.

Commented: Sunday, February 17th, 2013 @ 5:12 pm By: Ron Paulyes