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Kane sheriff tells why he booted federal inmates

The Kane County jail wasn't unsafe while it housed federal inmates, but mounting lawsuits and correctional officer grievances showed the facility needed to be safer than it was, Sheriff Don Kramer told county board members Tuesday.

Kramer's presentation detailed his thinking in terminating a $2.5 million contract with U.S. Marshals to house federal detainees in the jail. It did not include a playbook for how to trim $2.5 million from the sheriff's or county's overall budget to address the unexpected revenue shortfall. That sets the stage for a public relations war over who is responsible for a looming painful cut to the county's police operations.

Kramer set his battle lines for that front with some early finger pointing. He referenced a 2010 financial report on the jail indicating the facility opened on day one with fewer officers than needed to run the day-to-day operations. The report indicated the jail needed 128 officers. Kramer has 122.

Kramer also cited the frequent practice of shipping Kane County inmates — up to 93 a day — to Kendall County to make room for the federal detainees as proof the Kane jail couldn't handle the full load of inmates.

Extreme forced overtime was the only technique keeping the jail from getting out of hand, Kramer said. That policy resulted in at least 200 incidents of guards working eight hours of overtime immediately following their regular 8-hour shifts. A recent unfair labor practice judgment bars the county from anything longer than 4 hours of forced overtime. That's further weakened jail staffing levels, Kramer said.

Meanwhile, there are more than 40 pending union grievances stemming from the county having the lowest guard-to-prisoner ratio compared to any nearby comparable county, Kramer said. That's part of why there's been no union contract for seven years, he added. The only solutions he saw were getting rid of the federal detainees or hiring at least eight new officers. But the hiring and training process can take up to two years.

“I really only had the one option of reducing inmates at this time,” Kramer said. “I did it for the concern of the inmates and for the concern of the officers. I never deemed the jail unsafe. The steps I took were to make it safer and come into compliance.”

Kramer then implicated county board Chairman Chris Lauzen as the reason the marshals promptly removed almost every federal detainee. Kramer said his conversations with the marshals indicated they understood he was interested in a smaller, slower drawdown of the inmates. After Lauzen started making his own calls to the marshals, they decided to pull more than 40 detainees out in one day.

“I think the decision to do what they did was influenced by our chairman,” Kramer said.

Lauzen called Kramer's insinuation “absolutely ridiculous.” He called the marshals to try and repair the relationship only after hearing Kramer was attempting to cancel the federal contract without the authority to do so.

Lauzen said Kramer's use of employee grievances and workman's compensation claims are overblown justifications for a flawed decision. Only about a third of the lawsuits and workman's compensation claims Kramer cited have liabilities totaling more than $5,000, Lauzen said. He called on Kramer to detail his plan to address the shortfall.

“As every day clicks off, it's less and less time to make up the $2.5 million,” Lauzen said.

Kramer said he's happy to meet with the board, but he will draw the line at any major reduction in the amount of money he expects to receive from the county's coffers.

“I'm not going to give up $2 million worth of the operational budget,” Kramer said.

After Tuesday's meeting, Kramer said he believes the county has plenty of money to replace the unexpected loss of U.S. Marshal revenue. The county board's finance committee will address the budget hole this week. The board already made a small cut to Kramer's budget, but there is still a shortfall of about $1.7 million for the remainder of the year.

  Kurt Kojzarek was one of several Kane County Board members to pepper Sheriff Don Kramer with questions about why he didn't bring jail staffing concerns to the board before terminating a $2.5 million contract to house federal inmates. James Fuller/jfuller@dailyherald.com
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