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MEMORANDUM To: Mayor and City Council From: City Manager Subject: Santa Ana jail -Update From December 16, 2013 Attachment A Date: May 20, 2014 This memo provides a Santa Ana Jail briefing update and restating strategies for making the jail operations viable. The action requested in part by this memo update is to approve a higher per diem rate with US Marshalls. The new per diem rate will result in additional revenue of $1,463,358. This is the first rate increase in 8 years. In addition, the City will experience a cost savings of $214,000 as it relates to the implementation of a new cost restructuring. Background The Santa Ana Jail opened in 1997 as part of the new "state of the art" Police Services Building at a total cost of $109 million. The Santa Ana Jail was constructed in response to two County of Orange issues impacting our City at the time. The first issue was the County's decision to assess booking fees to local agencies at a rate of $158 per prisoner, therefore negatively impacting City finances. The second issue was the County's inability to process, book, and hold misdemeanor arrests due to the County jail overcrowding. In addition to the aforementioned county decisions impacting the City, the construction of the jail was also in response to the City experiencing a higher volume of violent crimes and property crimes. The good news is that since 1997, violent crimes and property crimes have decreased by 41% and 34% respectively. Santa Ana's Jail facility was constructed for two primary functions; the processing and booking of individuals and the core function of housing prisoners. Currently the majority of jail inmates are United States Marshall (USM) prisoners and United States Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) detainees. During calendar year 2013, the inmates housed at the Santa Ana Jail have been comprised of the USM at 58% and ICE at 41 %. Total cost to operate the jail facility in fiscal year 2013 -14 is $22.5 million. Excluding the Santa Ana benefit associated with the processing and booking of prisoners as well as excluding other reimbursable costs ($4 million combined), the net cost to operate the housing component amounts to approximately $18.5 million. It is important to emphasize that the Santa Ana Jail facility does provide a service benefit to the Santa Ana community as well as police operations. The Jail facility, which is a 24 hour operation, utilizes the equivalent of 22 jail personnel to process and book individuals arrested on felony charges prior to transferring them to the Orange County Jail. In addition, the jail facility contains a holding facility component that allows Santa Ana police officers to detain misdemeanor arrests that are not normally accepted by the County. The use of Santa Ana jail personnel provides greater effectiveness and efficiency by returning officers to patrol in a quicker time frame. The resulting effect is hundreds of additional hours per year back in the field. 25B -3