The Immigration and Naturalization Service and
the United States Marshals Service
Intergovernmental Service Agreements for
Detention Services with the
County of York, Pennsylvania
York County Prison

Report No. GR-70-01-005
June 25, 2001
Office of the Inspector General

The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of the costs incurred in relation to Intergovernmental Service Agreements (IGA), as modified, between the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the United States Marshals Service (USMS), and the County of York, Pennsylvania, York County Prison (York). The INS agreement provides that York will house detainees at a jail day rate of $60, and the USMS agreement, which the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) also uses, provides that York will house detainees at a jail day rate of $45. The objectives of the audit were to determine: (1) the audited jail day rate for the prison based on allowable incurred costs and jail days used for York's FY 2000, and (2) whether York was properly reimbursed.

According to the INS, York houses the largest number of INS detainees in a county prison in the nation. The total cost to operate the prison for our audit period of January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2000 (York's fiscal year) was about $24.6 million. During this period, the INS paid York $16,034,232 to house an average of 729 detainees per day, the USMS paid $280,050 to house an average of 17 detainees per day, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) paid $7,515 to house an average of .4 inmates per day. In total the INS, the USMS, and the BOP paid York about $17.2 million - about $16.3 million for housing detainees and an additional $872,600 for services such as out-of-prison medical care and translators.

Based on our audit of FY 2000 actual costs and actual daily population, we found that York overcharged the Department of Justice a total of $6,168,546. The primary cause for the overcharge was York's understatement of its average daily population on the cost statement used to determine the current jail day rate for the INS. On that cost statement, York reported an average daily population of 996 inmates for FY 1999 rather than its actual average daily population of 1,544 inmates.

We determined the FY 2000 audited jail day rate to be $37.07 instead of the $60 rate that York charged the INS and the $45 rate that York charged the USMS and the BOP respectively. Assuming the audited jail day rate is used in the future, and the average annual jail days utilized by the INS, the USMS, and the BOP remain constant along with recurring costs, the Department would realize additional annual savings of about $6.4 million.

Our findings are consistent with recent York County annual financial reports and official budgets crediting the INS agreement with providing substantial revenues that have kept taxes low and helped fund a prison expansion project. Consistent with these documents, we found that while federal detainees represented an average of about 44 percent of the FY 2000 prison population, federal payments to York substantially exceeded this amount with 70 percent of the prison's FY 2000 operating expenses paid by the INS, the USMS, and the BOP. In addition, our findings are consistent with statements made by the York County Prison Warden at the exit conference. At that time he stated that he reports to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania a jail day rate of $38.58 based on actual costs.

The findings are described in detail in the Findings and Recommendations section of this report. Our audit scope and methodology appear in Appendix III.