By Joseph Cranney
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
NEW ORLEANS — Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson told the City Council on Monday that the jail has far more inmates than it’s capable of holding, costing her office millions in unanticipated expenses and necessitating a major increase to the department’s 2025 budget.
While violent crime in New Orleans is down about 40%, Hutson said that there’s been a jump in arrests of people charged solely with misdemeanors such as trespassing, shoplifting and simple assault.
The roughly 1,500 inmates housed at the jail is well above the 1,250-inmate cap previously set by the council, she said, and far more than the 900-inmate cap her staff can handle. The crowding has contributed to a $12 million deficit due to overtime and other expenses.
“We still have to hold them,” Hutson said during the annual budget hearing. “It stresses our facilities.”
Mayor LaToya Cantrell has proposed increasing the sheriff’s current $55.3 million budget to $64.5 million in 2025.
But Hutson said she needs $88.3 million to handle the influx.
The increase would allow the sheriff to raise the starting salary for deputies from $18.45 to $20 an hour. That would still be less than the national average of $24 an hour.
She also noted that the average annual housing cost for an inmate is $53,000, while deputies are paid a base salary of around $37,400.
“This disparity between the cost of housing and staff salaries is unsustainable and highlights the urgent need for additional resources,” Hutson said.
There was little indication during Monday’s hearing of how much support Hutson would get. The City Council has to pass a final budget by Dec. 1 , and it has the power to add to or subtract by department from Cantrell’s $1.8 billion proposal.
The council has stiff-armed other, more meager requests for funding since Hutson took office two years ago, which she has said were largely needed because of chronic understaffing. That included $13 million in additional money she requested last year and in 2022, both of which were rejected.
The council did approve a raise for deputies last year, but it only amounted to a 45-cent increase in the starting salary. The council approved a $2.43 raise for deputies in 2022.
Council member Oliver Thomas said Hutson’s latest request warranted a “serious look.”
“We shouldn’t expect them to get by any more,” Thomas said after hearing from several deputies who said they were struggling because of low pay.
The jail population has spiked about 20% since January, which Hutson attributed, in part, to tough-on-crime legislation passed earlier this year, though not all of the jail’s numbers appear to back that up.
The large majority of the jail’s inmates — roughly two thirds — are felony defendants, according to OPSO’s population data. Hutson said court delays and higher bonds are two key factors keeping those people behind bars while they await trial.
About 1 in 10 inmates are charged with nothing more than a misdemeanor.
Still, those inmates stress a short-staffed department, increasing the costs of overtime and other overhead such as food and laundry.
While Louisiana law now considers 17-year-olds as adults, very few — no more than 25 — are housed at the jail, data shows. Roughly 40 inmates are post-conviction Department of Corrections prisoners, a jail spokesperson said.
Phase III, the jail’s controversial mental health wing that’s under construction, will add about 90 beds, though the facility is supposed to only house the jail’s most severely mentally ill inmates.
Opponents of the project have argued that the city should oppose any addition to the jail, because more space will only lead to more inmates.
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