WASHINGTON COUNTY QUORUM COURT
FINANCE & BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETS
TOMORROW, TUESDAY, 6/11/24, 6:00 PM, WASHINGTON COUNTY COURTHOUSE
(Corrections are in red)
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ANIMAL SHELTER BUDGET FOR 2024; AND, OTHER MATTERS PERTAINING THERETO. Agenda Page 48. Item No. 14.1
I received new information this morning from the Arkansas Department of Corrections, and that's the reason for this new blog post. Apologies, but I want to set the record straight.
So, the Northwest Arkansas Department of Community Corrections (CCC) has given notice to Washington County that it will no longer be able to provide inmate labor to the Washington County Animal Shelter. Therefore, this ordinance would create three new Kennel Attendant positions at a cost of $72,938.76 from the unappropriated reserves in the General Fund (1000). That's just for the remainder of 2024.
The Department of Correction (DOC) inmates that were providing these services to the animal shelter are not “309s.” I was wrong about that, hence this correction. The four DOC inmates that were providing services to the animal shelter are women imprisoned in the NWA CCC (women’s prison).
The DOC was forced to pull them from the animal shelter duty because the DOC has lost so much of its staff at the CCC, that they no longer are able to allow the women to participate in the animal shelter program.
I was told by the DOC this morning that they are “losing employees left and right” and that it’s “because of the unstable situation up there.” The “unstable situation” up here is that County Judge Deakins is asking for $3.2 Million Dollars annual rental from the state for the NWA CCC or he is going to cancel the DOC’s lease with the county as of 12/31/24. His plan is to take over the building and turn it into a second jail, a satellite jail.
So because of the uncertainty about all that, the dedicated employees of the CCC are leaving, seeking more stable employment elsewhere, and who can blame them for that? This is their livelihood the judge is tossing around.
Comments