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Population-driven increases push county, out-of-state and medical per diem requests
Summary
Legislative analysts said higher-than-projected jail and medical utilization drove supplemental requests for county and out-of-state placement and for the prison medical contract; the department warned contract rebids could raise costs by 30–40% if negotiations fail.
Legislative analysts told the Joint Finance Preparations Committee on Feb. 4 that population changes and unexpectedly high medical utilization are driving supplemental budget requests for county and out-of-state placements and for the Department of Correction’s medical contract.
Noah Peterson, budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, explained that the County and Out of State Placement Program and the Medical Services Division are operating-funded lines whose costs vary with population and utilization. Peterson said the agency requested supplemental funding because current-year population and medical usage exceeded earlier projections.
Peterson cited several rolling adjustments: a general-fund increase to account for population in FY2024 ($2,958,000), a legislative supplemental reduction in FY2024 that was restored in the base ($4,241,900), and a FY2025 population-driven increase ($1,923,700). He said the department requested $5,957,200 to cover higher-than-expected medical utilization for FY2025 and an ongoing adjustment of $4,027,900 for the population-driven baseline in FY2026.
Peterson warned the medical line also depends on a pending vendor negotiation. If negotiations with the current medical contractor succeed, the agency projects about a 10% increase in medical costs; if the contract goes to competitive bid, Peterson said the agency estimates a 30–40% increase.
Committee members asked how daily county per diems are set. Peterson recited the per diem numbers then in the spreadsheet (for example $57.50 per inmate per day for stays under seven days and $77.50 for longer county stays), and Director Tewalt clarified the statutory basis. "You set those rates. The rates for county jails are set by in code by the Idaho legislature," Tewalt said and noted the bifurcated statutory intent—to encourage timely state pickup to avoid backlogs in county jails.
The analyst and director said the daily-per-diem charges themselves did not change from initial projections; rather, population shifts and higher medical-service utilization drove the supplemental needs. The governor recommended the supplemental requests as presented; the committee requested follow-up detail on utilization assumptions and on the pending medical contract negotiations.
