Indiana DOC seeks $15.79M to retrofit Miami facility to house ICE detainees

The Indiana Department of Correction asked the State Budget Committee on Sept. 17 for $15,790,000 to upgrade Miami Correctional Facility so it can house detainees referred by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Commissioner Lloyd Arnold told the committee the funding would cover perimeter fencing, lighting, temporary housing structures, modifications to intake and processing areas, drug-detection and drone-prevention systems, and x-ray screening equipment. "Upon execution of the agreement with the Federal Government, the facility will require a series of infrastructure upgrades and equipment acquisitions," Commissioner Arnold said during the meeting.

Representative Ed DeLaney pressed the DOC on whether the federal government would reimburse the state for capital costs. "Is the federal government contractually obligated to pay back the Indiana DOC?" DeLaney asked. Commissioner Arnold said the federal reimbursement would come through the daily per-diem rate and that the $15,790,000 appropriation "may not be used" in full.

Lawmakers also questioned the financial and staffing assumptions behind the proposal. Commissioner Arnold said the federal per-diem rate for detainees would be $291 per day. By contrast, he told the committee the State's approved daily rate for paying a sheriff to hold an individual is $42 per day. Representative DeLaney noted that the federal per-diem is roughly seven times higher than the sheriff rate and questioned whether the state would accept the project only if it were profitable; Commissioner Arnold said the state would not have taken on the project if there was no financial benefit.

On staffing, Commissioner Arnold said Miami currently has about 300 correctional officers but described vacancy rates that he variously characterized as "fluctuat[ing] between 28% and 40%" and later as operating at a roughly 20% vacancy rate; he told the committee the project would require about 170 additional officers for the ICE-detainee portion of the facility and that selected staff would receive pay adjustments (he cited base pay of $22 per hour plus a $2 hourly stipend for maximum-security work and a proposed $6 per hour increase tied to this project).

Representative Gregory Porter sought clarity on whether legislators had been consulted before discussions with ICE began; Commissioner Arnold said discussions took place after the regular legislative session had ended and that the DOC had engaged with the Governor’s Office.

The committee debated removing the DOC item from the agenda; Representative Gregory Porter moved to remove agency project 7, which failed on a manual roll-call vote (2 Yes, 3 No). The committee subsequently approved the agenda and left the project on the table for later consideration.

Next step: the committee preserved the project on the agenda for further review; no appropriation vote was recorded at this meeting.