The Times-Picayune
New Orleans (AP) -- Following a 10 percent drop in the number of prisoners in the parish jail, the Orleans Parish criminal sheriff has laid off 73 employees.
The action, which affects mostly non-security jobs, was needed to keep the agency’s budget in balance, acting Sheriff William C. Hunter said Wednesday.
The jail now employs 1,240.
The cuts are part of what the sheriff described as his effort to make the operation efficient “in tight budgetary times.” The layoffs also come as the jail, where income is linked to the number of inmates, is facing financial pressure from several other sources.
Criminal district judges in Orleans Parish are suing the sheriff’s office over the construction of two new courtrooms. The judge say they are entitled to part of the proceeds from a $27 million bond issue voters approved in 2000 for capital improvements to the city’s criminal justice system.
The bond issue was put on the ballot by the Orleans Parish Law Enforcement District, headed by the criminal sheriff.
Also, Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration wants to save $3 million by reducing what it pays the sheriff to house city prisoners. The sheriff and the U.S. Marshals Service also are negotiating the daily rate the federal government pays to house prisoners in the prison.
The prison’s population has dropped 10 percent since this time last year to about 5,600 inmates because of improvements in the various functions of the criminal justice system, Hunter said.