A relatively small bill on the Scioto County Commissioners’ agenda Thursday may signal six figures in savings for a county desperately looking for places to cut costs.
Scioto County’s September bill for house arrest and electronic monitoring came to just $3,161.
Defendants paid $361 of that themselves, leaving taxpayers with a bill of about $2,800.
That might not sound remarkable until you compare it with what the county has been paying.
Commissioner Scottie Powell said monthly electronic monitoring bills have typically run between $10,000 and $11,000.
“This is the second month that we’ve seen lower rates,” Powell said.
And commissioners say it isn’t an accident.
Courts Change Ankle Monitor Strategy
Powell said the courts have changed how they use electronic monitoring, particularly when dealing with defendants who are already in residential treatment.
Previously, ankle monitors were sometimes used to make sure defendants ordered into treatment remained at the facility.
The courts have moved away from that practice.
Powell said commissioners had discussed the expense with court officials and praised them for responding.
“I appreciate this new strategy,” Powell said. “I’ve spoken to the courts. If we continue to see this trend, we are looking at probably over $100,000 in savings over the next year.”
He added, “Thank you to the courts for hearing us and helping with our budget.”
Commissioner Merit Smith echoed that.
“I’d like to echo the words of thanks to the court,” Smith said. “It just goes to show that when you communicate, you can work things out over time.”
An Expense Commissioners Have Watched for Years
Electronic monitoring has repeatedly caught commissioners’ attention because the bills can add up quickly.
Four years ago, the county faced a $31,813 bill for only two months of ankle monitoring.
In another month, monitoring 52 defendants cost the county nearly $13,000.
Although defendants can be ordered to pay the approximately $14.50-per-day monitoring cost themselves, many defendants are indigent. When they cannot pay, the bill ultimately lands with the county.
That doesn’t mean electronic monitoring itself is a bad deal.
Keeping an appropriate defendant on house arrest rather than occupying a jail bed can save substantial money. Previous county estimates have put the overall savings from electronic monitoring versus incarceration at roughly $400,000 annually.
The question commissioners have raised is whether every defendant being monitored actually needs the device.
The new approach appears to be answering that question more selectively.
$100,000 Matters Right Now
The timing couldn’t be much better.
Scioto County is putting together a budget while facing a substantial gap between what departments are requesting and the money expected to be available.
Commissioners have previously discussed roughly $28 million to $30 million in requests against approximately $22 million in available revenue, while the federal COVID-relief money that helped cushion earlier budgets is gone.
Departments have already been warned to expect a lean year, with possibilities including flat budgets, pay freezes, staffing reductions, or furloughs.
At the same time, Children Services is struggling with a multimillion-dollar shortfall driven largely by the soaring cost of placing children in foster and residential care.
Against numbers that large, a few thousand dollars on an ankle-monitor invoice can seem insignificant.
But recurring expenses are exactly where savings add up.
If a bill that normally approaches $10,000 or $11,000 can consistently stay closer to September’s $2,800 taxpayer cost, the difference becomes tens of thousands of dollars within months.
And according to Powell, if the trend holds, the county could keep more than $100,000 in its budget over the next year.
For commissioners searching department by department and invoice by invoice for ways to close a multimillion-dollar budget gap, that’s one change they’re hoping sticks.