Per Diem Committee

Sheriff clashes with New Orleans City Council over prison costs

Gusman threatened, as he has before, to sue the city to get an increase in the daily stipend, or per diem, he is paid to house and feed city prisoners. He also said the city is "derelict in its responsibilities" because it does not pay for operating and maintaining the various jail buildings.

Council members complained, as they have before, that Gusman gives them too little information about how he spends the money he does get. It's the same charge that Gusman, as a former city chief administrative officer and council Budget Committee chairman, used to make against former Sheriff Charles Foti Jr.

Gusman also clashed with Councilman Arnie Fielkow about what policies Gusman follows, and should be following, on detaining people wanted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as possible illegal aliens.

Since 1990, the city, under a federal consent judgment, has paid the sheriff's office a set amount each day for every city prisoner. It's been $22.39 a day since 2003. Gusman said last year he needs as much from the city as he gets from the state, $26.39 a day.

However, the per diem system has come under criticism from nationally known corrections expert James Austin and city Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux .

In a report this month, Quatrevaux's office said that even though "the evidence suggests that this per diem amount is inadequate to sustain the operation of the jail," the arrangement "provides a disincentive for the sheriff to correct inefficient information systems that delay the release of some detainees."

The report said the city "lacks sufficient information about the sheriff's expenditures for jail operations to make an informed assessment of the level of funding it should provide to house prisoners."

Councilwoman Susan Guidry, co-chairwoman of the council's Criminal Justice Committee, said she hopes the city can end the per diem system in 2012, instead giving the sheriff a budget based on documented costs.

Guidry and other council members struggled Wednesday to make sense of the 2011 budget figures Gusman furnished to them, and his answers to their questions often appeared to leave them just as confused.

The single page of numbers showed that the sheriff's office's expenses are running $4 million above budget for the year while revenue is coming in $2.5 million less than expected, creating a further $6.5 million shortfall in a budget that was $4.6 million out of balance to begin with. Gusman said he will use a $4 million loan and $4 million in cash reserves to cover part of the shortfall.

Senate Ethics Committee Clarifies Per Diem Rules in Response to ...

Washington, DC -- June 21, 2011

Judicial Watch, the organization that fights government corruption, announced today that the Senate Committee on Ethics sent a letter on June 3, 2011, to all Senate Members and staff to make certain they "understand and adhere to the rules on unused per diem," following a Judicial Watch ethics complaint over alleged widespread abuse of cash per diem travel funds by members of Congress. The Senate Ethics Committee refused, however, to hold accountable individual members of Congress referenced in press reports documenting per diem abuse.

According to the Senate Ethics Committee letter sent to Judicial Watch on June 8, 2011:

...based upon review of the information you have provided, it appears that your complaint lacks merit and further Committee action is not appropriate with respect to this matter. The Committee, however, has recently circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter to ensure that all Members and staff, especially those who are new to the Senate, understand and adhere to the rules on unused per diem. notes, admitted that it's “fairly standard” policy for lawmakers to use the leftover money “for shopping or to buy souvenirs to bring back to constituents.”