Threats and mudslinging continue as St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis and Sheriff Jack Strain battle over who’s responsible for funding the St. Tammany Parish Jail.

Strain has asked parish government to allocate $2 million annually out of its $13.7 million general fund budget to help pay for the expenses of running the 1,200 bed facility.

Without that money, Strain said he couldn’t continue operating the jail at full capacity.

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Recently, because of lack of funding, Strain was forced to release 100 prisoners and lay off 30 officers who worked in the jail.

He said those numbers will only grow if he does not get the funding he needs from the parish.

Davis said the parish, which has slimmed down its own budget to match the economic times, does not have the money to put toward the jail.

Regardless, he stands by his opinion that the parish has done its part by turning over the proceeds from a quarter-cent sales tax dedicated to jail maintenance and operations.

In a letter Davis sent to Strain Wednesday, the parish president states,” when the jail sales taxes was implemented it was intended to fund the parish’s obligations for the jail solely with the tax.”

“When the parish government agreed to present the jail sales tax to voters in 1998 it was intended that the tax would completely fulfill all parish obligations for jail funding and prisoner care once the remittance reached a sustainable level,” he wrote.

Davis points out in his letter that the revenue derived from the tax has increased from $4.1 million in 1998/1999 to $9.5 million in 2008/2009.

He said when looking at the sales tax collection after debt service, the increase is even greater with the amount going up by 113 percent.

With these numbers taken into consideration, Davis asks in his letter “what increased cost for parish prisoners causes you to run the jail fund in deficit?” Davis questions if Strain has used any of this money for projects outside of the jail including the new Sheriff’s facility in eastern St. Tammany.

The financial reports for the jail fund, show Strain spending an estimated $4 million of money from that fund between 2001 and 2008 on capital improvements.

While Davis’ office questions if any of that money was used to pay for the construction of the Sheriff’s new facility in eastern St. Tammany, Strain said all of that money was used for improvements or repairs in the jail.

The largest expenditure came in 2007, where the Sheriff’s Office budget shows more than $1.5 million being transferred from the jail fund to a line item simply listed as “capital outlays.” Strain said most of that money was used to pay for new computers and software to update the system that controls the opening and closing of doors in the jail.

Following Hurricane Katrina, because of problems at other jails in the state, the St. Tammany Parish Jail was prevented from transferring out any convicted prisoners who were under the state Department of Corrections, which are known as for-profit prisoners because the state pays the local jails to house them. Therefore, Strain said, in 2006 and 2007 the jail fund had a surplus, which made up most of the money used for the project.

“I have not spent the jail tax on anything but the jail,” he said in his office Thursday.

However, that’s where the two men’s opinion on where the parish’s responsibility when it comes to funding the jail ends.

Davis believes the parish is only responsible for the building itself and food and medical care of the prisoners but not for the salaries for the deputies working in the jail.

Strain said the proposition the voters approved in 1998 did not limit the tax’s use to just those items.

The proposition reads that the tax is “dedicated solely for providing and maintaining jail facilities for the sheriff to incarcerate prisoners,” and Strain said this includes paying for the manpower to run the facility.

Because he has concerns about how the money has been spent in the past, Davis has said starting Jan. 1. he wants Strain to turn over all revenue from the quarter-cent sales tax to the parish’s finance department and to bill the parish, which will in turn provide Strain with a set amount per prisoner/per day.

Strain said if this is what Davis wants to do, he will keep the portion of the tax to cover his share of the cost of operating the jail and will forward the parish the money to cover its cost.

However, he said regardless of how the tax is dispensed it is simply not enough money.

“In my opinion, for him (Davis) to expand his jail from 310 inmates to nearly 1,200 inmates and then claim the jail tax as sole funding and call his work done confounds any reasonable person’s economic sensibilities,” Strain wrote in a Oct. 23 letter to Parish Council Chairman Jerry Binder. “Incidentally, when the jail was at the 310 inmate level, President Davis was spending about $3 million annually from his general fund on the jail.”

“The jail tax has never generated enough revenue to operate the jail,” Strain said.

He said if he does everything Davis is asking him to do, he would be forced to release all but 350 pre-trail inmates and ship out all state inmates.

At last count on Oct. 23, the jail was housing 489 pre-trial inmates and 540 state inmates.

Strain said eliminating the DOC population would actually cost the parish money because state inmates working the jail kitchen, do maintenance at the jail and are used by the parish at the animal shelter and by other departments.

“He (Davis) knows the cost savings those prisoners have for the parish,” Strain said. “DOC more than pays for itself, providing funding for us to house an estimated 150 more parish inmates.”

Strain said this is not a new issue, as he has been asking Davis for help for years now and has been providing the council with weekly reports on what inmates are being released.

“When it came to the point that the people being released became too violent, he became mad,” Strain said of Davis.

“I have asked him to come to the table to help me with this problem,” Strain said, adding that, “this will have ramifications on the criminal justice system.”

He said when it comes to releasing prisoners “we have no better teacher then to look to the Southshore.”