News

County gives inmates and soldiers phone funding

The Dane County Board of Supervisors agreed to relieve county jail inmates of the high costs of telephone calls and offer an additional $25,000 for the communication needs of soldiers overseas late last week.

Prison inmates are charged four times the amount of money it costs to place a phone call for a resident of Madison, according to District 1 Supervisor Scott McDonell.

“For inmates, we provided a bit of money for them to make free calls,” McDonell said. “We charge a lot of money for them to make calls, so we decided to relieve them a bit.”

District 3 Supervisor Elaine DeSmidt said the high costs of telephone calls are a burden to inmate’s families, and it is important to treat all citizens of Dane County with respect.

“Inmates need to retain … contact with their families and their lawyers,” DeSmidt said, adding the current costs are very expensive. “Whatever we can do to make our county a premier county in the handling of our citizens is very important.”

According to McDonell, money was originally going to be taken from the prisoners’ relief fund and redistributed to soldiers’ needs. However, a compromise was passed to form a committee that will decide how to disperse $25,000 for soldiers in addition to money already allocated to prison inmates.

Andy Olsen, chair of the Public Protection and Judiciary committee, said the additional money for soldiers comes out of a general fund. The revenue from the high prices of phone calls for inmates is put toward the budget for the Dane County Jail, including funding for this program.

According to Olsen, soldiers overseas lack not only necessities such as body armor and vehicle armor, but also ways to communicate with families back in the United States.

“We found out that the federal government is not supporting its obligation to support the troops,” Olsen said. “We do have an emergency situation created by negligence of the government.”

Olsen said the committee, which will include members of the Personnel and Finance Committee, Health and Human Needs Committee and the Dane County Veterans’ Service Offices, will decide what soldiers overseas need the most. In some areas, soldiers have too many phone cards but do not have cell phones because they are in war zones. The money could also be more helpful for returning veterans, he added.

The thousands of dollars in funding offered to relieve prison inmates will be granted based on individual need. Olsen said the public defender’s office will determine which inmates are in need of the most financial help.

“It’s a pirate program,” Olsen said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Olsen said some members of the Board of Supervisors opposed the decision to grant extra money to soldiers overseas because they felt it was not the responsibility of the local government. The decision was passed easily, though, he added.

Although $25,000 is helpful for prison inmates, McDonell said it will not go very far.

“There are 1,000 inmates making a bazillion phone calls everyday,” McDonell said. “They can tear through that very quick.”