Valencia Co. considers cuts to fund overcrowded jail

There is no relief in sight for the overcrowded Valencia County jail. Voters have shot down a ta...  More »

There is no relief in sight for the overcrowded Valencia County jail. Voters have shot down a tax extension, which would have been used to fund expansions at the facility. Now officials are considering raiding the budgets of other county services. The Valencia County jail is so full that inmates are stacked three bunks high. The jail has to pay other facilities as far away as Grants and Santa Fe to house overflow inmates. "I think that the expansion of the jail is going to have to occur, and the funds are going to have to come from some source,” said Valencia County Commission Chairman Pedro Rael. The funds would have come from the renewal of an eighth-of-a-cent gross receipts tax. But it failed on the ballot nearly two-to-one. "It wouldn't have impacted them any different than what's going on right now,” said Kenneth Griego, Valencia County’s business manager. County officials say they still need to find nearly $5.5 million to expand the jail and relieve overcrowding. So, come the start of the next fiscal year in 2010 cuts will have to be made countywide. "The realization that we have is that it's going to cost us a lot more later on,” said Griego. The county will look at the 2010 general fund for cuts. It won’t be easy, considering Valencia County is already expecting a 5-7 percent shortfall. First on the chopping block are county services. "We have an animal control shelter. We have about 259 employees in a number of departments, code enforcement. We have the sheriff's office,” said Rael. As a last resort, the county will consider cutting employee pay. If that’s not enough, jobs could follow. County officials say they may try to bring back the gross receipts tax, but they have to wait a year to do so. So it’s possible voters could see it on a ballot a year from now.  « Less