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Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
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News :: Prisons |
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Jail Phone Victory! |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sandra Ahten
Email: spiritofsandra (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-367-6345 |
24 Feb 2005
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Advocates for eliminating the practice of Champaign County accepting a kickback from the jail phone provider saw victory Thursday night as the Champaign County Board voted to completely eliminate the “compensation.” Champaign County has been accepting compensation for their phone contract since at least 1998. |
For the second month in a row, opponents of continuing the contract which provided the county $14,000 a month guaranteed “commission” spoke during the public input section of the meeting. The agenda called for a Finance Committee proposal that would extend the current contract for another two months, with no further action. Disappointed with this lack of will and action, I spoke with almost every Democrat on the Champaign County Board this week prior to the meeting. I asked them if they would support a motion to extend the contract through the end of this fiscal year “as is,” and in the mean time send the contract out for a bid without any “compensation” for next year. Based on their feed back, I thought that this motion might pass, but I knew it would be close.
The meeting was described by one observer as a “trainwreck.” They put a motion on the floor to extend the contract for two months. Then it got amended to include the provision that it would not include the “compensation.” This motion was on the floor for more than a half hour. This motion was voted on without any clarification as to when the dates for dropping the compensation would be and without any call for the contract to go out for bid. It did pass with the vote being 11 against and 13 for. It surfaced later that some thought that the proposal was to end the “compensation” with the new fiscal year and others thought it was an immediate mandate. I could go on about how eventually it all got clarified, but suffice to say it was a comical and extremely confusing round of parliamentary procedure. It was also extremely rewarding in the end in that the compensation will be dropped immediately – no compromise at all!
One interesting point in the meeting was when Deb Feinen (R) said she would vote for it, if it could be phased out over time “maybe three, five, or ten years!”
The vote to end it was split along party lines. (I need to clarify this). Steve Beckett (D) was not present.
Deb Busey, a county administrator said that the $168,000 per year was .64 of one percent of the total budget. (I need to verify this number) Jenny Putnam suggested that in the next fiscal year the money come from shaving that amount off of each budget. That proposal was met with concern in that it could be unfair to some small departments. Others suggested that part of the money could come (this year) from delaying the purchase of a $250,000 new software for payroll. Others suggested that perhaps the $50,000 for a diversity study was going to be shunned and could come from that. It was never suggested that it would come from the budget of the Sheriff and would ultimately come for medical and mental health services. This had previously been suggested when I’d spoken to some Democrats and Republicans privately.
Patricia Avery addressed the concern of where the money would come from in the budget by noting that the county can always find places to add things that they want and need to the budget – but that when it comes to poor people we had to delay it for five or ten years (as suggested by Deb Feinen). Claudia Gross said that it could be done because in fact “the budget was done on a spreadsheet it wasn’t written in stone.”
All in all it was a very good night. Thanks to everyone who signed the petition (more than 700!); everyone who spoke and showed up at the meetings; and members of CU Citizens for Peace and Justice.
We need to keep an eye on the County Board as they make their budget plans for next year.
The meeting will replay on Insight Cable UPTV Channel 6 on Saturday Feb. 26 – 8am and Sunday Feb. 27 at (4pm according to the Champaign County website) (5pm according to the UPTV schedule website).
The meeting is also replayed on the City of Champaign Access Channel (Channel 5) on the Monday following the meeting at 12:00 P.M.
Previous articles about the phone contract are here.
http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/23335/index.php
Peace,
Sandra |
This work is in the public domain |
