Charleston Gazette-Mail, Huntington Herald-Dispatch – With jail costs bearing down on county commissions in West Virginia, a legislative committee drafted a bill Friday that would play a part in decreasing how much county governments pay to incarcerate people. Read the full article.
The House of Delegates Committee on Jails and Prisons adopted a bill that would shift the cost of jail employee salaries from the counties to the state by changing the revenue source for their salaries from the per-diem jail formula to the state’s special revenue funds.
Lawmakers said the bill would alleviate some of the financial pressures county governments have faced in paying down their jail bills.