Legislation to pay incarcerated workers at Allegheny County Jail fails

An effort to pay people being held at Allegheny County Jail $10 a day for work performed there failed on Thursday because the majority of the oversight board said there wasn’t enough information to ensure such a mandate would be funded.

The motion, made by board member Bethany Hallam, got only one yes vote. Jail Oversight Board Chair and Common Pleas Judge Elliot Howsie voted against the motion, while five other members abstained.

“It’s disappointing, but unfortunately not at all surprising, that not a single one of my (board) colleagues could muster up the courage to vote with me to eliminate slavery in Allegheny County,” Hallam said after the meeting. “I look forward to bringing this motion back for a vote each month until the incarcerated workers in the ACJ, without whom the jail could not operate, are compensated for their labor.”

Those who abstained offered support for the idea but said the funding for the program must be set before the legislation passes.

“County council should pass the budget first, and then we should have the conversation,” said member and County Controller Corey O’Connor.

In introducing her motion, Hallam said the cost to the county would be about $820,000 per year, amounting to pay of less than $2 per hour for an average of about 225 incarcerated workers.

“The $10 a day is way lower than I think it should be,” Hallam said. But she continued, “I really want to get this done. It is so unjust and a violation of the Constitution that they are working now without pay.”

Under state statute, incarcerated workers in Allegheny County would be required to turn over at least three-quarters of their pay to their dependents, she said. If they have none, Hallam said, the statute requires that the workers would not receive their pay until they are released from jail. It would be disbursed in thirds — at release, three months later, and three months after that.

“It doesn’t give them this huge chunk of money at once but gives them a source of income as they get their lives back together,” Hallam said.

She told the board that she has the votes on council to secure funding for inmate pay.

“What we pass on this board is binding,” Hallam said. “The county has to fund it.”

But Howsie disagreed.

“This board, historically does not have the legal authority to spend a million dollars because we said so,” Howsie said. “We do not have authority. You can set whatever you want. You can’t tell the county to do it, and that’s the point.”

Howsie said that those incarcerated at the jail already receive money each month out of the inmate welfare fund to pay for commissary items.

“We already give every incarcerated person $125 per month just for being there,” he said. “Now we’re gonna spend another $1 million? For me, it doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand where the money’s coming from.”

Howsie also objected to the amount of money to be paid to the workers, noting that in the state Department of Corrections, inmates are paid less than $3 per day.

When Hallam asked Howsie how much he thought they should receive, he cited the inmate welfare fund.

“The 125 they already get for doing nothing.”