One of the final actions we took as a Legislature this year was override the veto of a bill providing the county jails with additional state funding.

The funding came from a revenue surplus that was the result of our improving national economy. I voted in favor of using $2.5 million of that money to meet county jails’ operating costs for the year, because I didn’t want property taxpayers in Topsham or anywhere else in Sagadahoc County to be on the hook for the existing shortfall.

It was a vote I was happy to cast in the short term because it shrinks a county-wide property tax hike. But, serious problems remain when it comes to how our county jails are funded.

For several years we have been unable to agree on a stable, sustainable funding mechanism, and the result has been that county sheriffs and commissioners come to the Legislature every year during budget season asking for help.

The county jail system started off being operated and funded at the county level, but, about 10 years ago, just after Two Bridges Regional Jail was completed, the state assumed more centralized control of the jails and took some more of the responsibility for funding them. The state Board of Corrections was created to administer the newly reorganized system.

That system had some early kinks but could have become an excellent model, if it had received sufficient funding and thoughtful attention from state policymakers. But, when the current governor took office, it became clear he neither liked nor trusted the new system. He wanted to have more direct control over the jail system himself, and he pressured the Legislature to move in that direction.

Maine was approaching a crossroads:

Would stakeholders in the counties and the Legislature save the centralized system they had through created though reform, accede to the governor’s desire to assume direct control or go back to the old, decentralized system that was run and funded mostly at the county level?

Soon after, the governor stopped filling vacancies on the Board of Corrections, and, by 2015, the board could no longer carry out its responsibilities effectively. It was decision time for the Legislature.

So last June, we voted on a bill that began to reverse county jail consolidation. While I agreed with the idea of ending consolidation, the bill was written in such a way that Sagadahoc and Lincoln counties, which are jointly responsible for Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset, would not have received enough funding to avoid major administrative problems and a significant property tax increase. The bill also contained an unsustainable funding formula and caps on how much revenue counties could raise that were not consistent with the realities of each county’s budget and the operational costs of our jails.

Despite efforts to fix the problems in the bill, it eventually passed over our opposition.

And, just as we feared, we found ourselves voting on that extra funding less than a year later. Meanwhile, Two Bridges operates on the barest of bare bones budgets with almost every employee but the guards serving in a volunteer capacity. The TBRJ Jail Authority had to make some difficult decisions to balance its books while ensuring safety at the jail. This has resulted in reducing or eliminating programs that benefit the inmates and make them better citizens once they return to the community.

Here in Sagadahoc County, we’re lucky to have a strong advocate in Sheriff Joel Merry. He has proven to be a thoughtful negotiator with a thorough working knowledge of the county jail system. Lawmakers have benefited a great deal from his understanding of the history behind the funding problems.

I’ve appreciated my conversations with Sheriff Merry and the Two Bridges Correctional Administrator Mark Westrum. Their concerns have convinced me we should take action in the next Legislature to solve this problem once and for all.

No more one-time fixes or dysfunctional formulas. Our county law enforcement officers and Topsham (and all Sagadahoc County) property taxpayers deserve better.

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Rep Denise Tepler, D-Topsham, is a member of the Taxation Committee and is serving her first term in the Legislature. She represents all of Topsham in the Maine House.