Cochise County supervisors consider reversing Sierra Vista facility swap to cover $667,000 jail funding gap

Miss Gilman, a county staff member presenting jail district budget details to the Cochise County Board of Supervisors on May 23, said the jail district faces an additional funding need of $667,242 for the coming fiscal year.

The shortfall reflects a maintenance-of-effort (MOE) transfer the county is statutorily required to make plus other revenues. "Bottom line, we need additional funding, in order to meet these funding requests of $667,242," Miss Gilman said during the work session. She told supervisors the MOE line is currently $6,700,000, other revenue sources total about $351,000, and total revenues were about $7,000,000 against expenses of about $7,400,000 before the discretionary funding requests.

The sheriff's office submitted a set of discretionary requests that the county summarized as about $288,000, including a salary adjustment request of roughly $213,000 to cover wage increases for detention and jail staff, a $40,000 increase for part-time detention officers to reduce overtime, and operational increases in jail medical services. County staff also identified a budgeted $588,000 tied to a previously approved Sierra Vista facility swap that has not yet been implemented because the sheriff's office has not filled the necessary positions.

Commander Bradshaw of the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, participating remotely, told the board a separate $12,000 item for a nurse practitioner has been paid from the inmate welfare fund and that the fund has diminished following federal changes: "that $12,000 actually comes out of the inmate welfare fund. And the reason that fund is being eliminated or dwindling down so far is because of the change in FCC regulations where we can no longer get a commission on phone calls or video visits," he said.

Board members and staff discussed how to cover the gap and outlined three primary options: increase the MOE transfer from the general fund beyond the current $6.7 million, transfer revenue from the county's half-cent sales tax dedicated to the jail district, or reverse the Sierra Vista facility swap and reallocate that budgeted $588,000 back into jail operations for the current year. County staff recommended, as a conservative short-term step, reversing the swap for the current fiscal year because the positions tied to that swap have not yet been hired.

Supervisors pressed for more operational detail before making any recurring funding commitments. The board asked staff to provide floor plans and a staffing justification that explains how many officers and control-room positions are required for each facility and how the requested 8 detention officers and one medical staffer for the Sierra Vista swap would be deployed. County staff and the sheriff's office clarified that the swap request as currently framed was for eight additional detention officers and one medical person, down from an earlier request that included 20 new positions and supervisory ranks.

Members also raised questions about whether jail population trends support expanding capacity. Board members noted the planning materials on the table use data through 2023 and requested updated population and court-filing figures (2024 and current rolling counts) from the sheriff's office and the jail planning consultant to better assess the need. The sheriff's office said it maintains daily inmate counts and that probation violations have recently been a major driver of local jail population.

No formal motion or vote occurred at the work session. The board directed staff to return with: (1) a breakout of the discretionary funding requests by category (medical, operations, salary adjustments, part-time officer funding), (2) up-to-date jail population and case-filing data, and (3) floor plans and a staffing layout showing required posts per shift to justify the requested hires. Supervisors signaled a preference to postpone hiring tied to the Sierra Vista swap until those materials and a more current revenue projection (including the status of the proposed jail sales tax) are available.

The board scheduled follow-up work to revisit the items when updated data and the consultant's materials are available; no formal budget decision was made at the May 23 session.