Rappahannock Regional Jail Budget Increases Affect Localities
Caps on how much jails can charge inmates for phone calls means a $1.75 million shortfall in revenue "immediately."
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The Rappahannock Regional Jail has requested increased funding from member jurisdictions for next fiscal year—and the request is among the factors driving up local budgets.
Fredericksburg’s city manager, Tim Baroody, and Stafford’s county administrator, Bill Ashton, both cited increased jail funding as among the major drivers during their recent budget presentations.
The jail is anticipating a loss in revenue due to a July 2024 ruling by the Federal Communications Commission which lowered rate caps and prices paid by incarcerated individuals for phone and video communication and prohibited providers from paying commissions to jails and prisons for these services.
A 2023 law—the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act—enabled the FCC to implement the rate caps.
The high cost of phone calls and video visits with incarcerated loved ones is disproportionately born by low-income women of color, according to Worth Rises—a nonprofit organization dedicated to prison reform—and the Virginia ACLU, and advocates have fought for these rates to be regulated.
But the Virginia Association of Regional Jails and the Virginia Sheriff’s Organization opposed the FCC’s rule, stating—in a letter to the FCC that was included in the minutes of the July 2024 Rappahannock Regional Jail Authority Board meeting—that the rule will have “a negative fiscal impact on jails and localities in Virginia” by eliminating commissions and noting that “many jails have entered into multi-year contracts with service providers.”
Jail Superintendent Kevin Hudson told the Jail Authority Board at its August 22, 2024, meeting that as a result of the FCC rule, the jail will lose $1.75 million in revenue “immediately.”
This is the same amount that the jail budgeted to receive in revenues from “inmate telephone” during the current fiscal year, which began July 1, 2024, and ends June 30.
The jail is also hoping to address high rates of staff turnover by providing cost-of-living and merit increases for civilian and sworn officer staff, Hudson wrote in his budget request for fiscal year 2026.
The member localities of the Regional Jail Authority—Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania, and King George—fund the jail proportionally according to how many individuals from the locality were housed there the preceding fiscal year.
The jail is requesting increased funding from all localities. Stafford’s contribution will increase by $2.2 million to a total of $10 million. Spotsylvania’s contribution will increase by $1.1 million to $8.1 million total, Fredericksburg’s by $537,204 to $3.9 million, and King George’s by $271,000 to $1.3 million.
Fredericksburg’s share of debt service to the jail is also increasing this year, to a total of $1.3 million, according to the city’s budget information.
The total “average daily membership” at the jail went up in 2024 after declining for two years in a row. At the end of fiscal year 2024, average daily membership was about 1,100, down from 1,200 in fiscal year 2021 but up from the previous fiscal year’s average of about 900.
In fiscal year 2024, Stafford’s average daily membership was 475, Spotsylvania’s 383, Fredericksburg’s 183, and King George’s 62.
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