BUTLER COUNTY, Ohio — Butler County has increased its daily rate to house federal prisoners for the U.S. Marshals Services and ICE detainees in the county jail by 54%
The per diem rate was increased from $68 — which has been in effect for many years — to $105 and the transportation fee jumped from $36 to $47, a 30.5% hike.
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said it will increase revenues to the county by $20 million a year.
Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer told our news partner the Journal-News they requested a rate hike because expenses have gone up and nothing else has changed with the contract.
“This latest one is just a rate change, it doesn’t change anything,” Dwyer said. “We’re still doing the same thing we were doing 15 years ago, the same thing we were doing 15 days ago and the same thing we’ll be doing 15 days from now.”
Jones re-entered a contract to house U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees in the jail in February. The county had a contract with ICE from 2003 until June 2021, when the sheriff said he cancelled it because of the Biden administration’s regulations.
The sheriff houses inmates from county jurisdictions as well as those in cooperation with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons.
Commissioner Don Dixon told the Journal-News the rate increase is welcome.
“Everything we’ve been told was that the old per diem met the cost to operate the jail and provide the services,” Dixon said. “With everything going up, salaries going up, insurance going up, everything going up, something has to change, it will certainly enhance the finances of keeping prisoners.”
Jones told the Journal-News recently that he expects the revenues for this year will be $3 million higher than projected at roughly $11 million. Next year, with roughly 500 — between ICE and U.S. Marshals — paid federal inmates, they could reach $20 million to $22 million with the rate hikes.
“In the last 20 years, we’ve brought in over $200 million,” Jones said. “That’s a lot of zeroes.”
Jones submitted a $61.5 million budget for 2026 that includes adding 18 more employees than he budgeted this year — despite the fact that the commissioners instituted a hiring freeze in May —for a total complement of 425 staffers.
Jones told the Journal-News, “a lot has changed” since the commissioners instituted the hiring freeze, and he said about four of the new hires will be paid by the schools and Liberty Twp.
The inmate numbers fluctuate daily, but at the end of May, there were 263 ICE detainees, 194 U.S. Marshals prisoners and 940 total inmates. On Tuesday, there were 963 total inmates, 329 were ICE detainees and 167 were Marshals’ prisoners.
A group of people has been coming to the commissioners' meetings for 14 weeks, imploring the commissioners to exit the deportation business. Ann Jantzen has been there every Tuesday, and this week she addressed Jones’ proposed budget, asking the commissioners to hold Jones to the hiring freeze.
“Would increasing his budget make any of us safer? Would increasing his budget make any of us shine any brighter?” Jantzen said. “Let’s not promote a money-making business out of destroying people, their family lives and that tears apart the fabric of our Butler County community.”
Jones has his budget hearing with the commissioners on Thursday.
