Maine counties will get more money for jails in 2027 after years of asking the state to increase funding.
The Maine Legislature approved an additional $4 million to be divided between the counties to fund their jails, on top of the $20.4 million that had already been allocated. The approval came in the final days of the legislative session as an emergency provision.
The funding will help stem the rising costs of the Penobscot County Jail, County Commissioner Chair Andre Cushing said.
Penobscot County’s budget jumped by nearly $4 million in 2026 due largely to jail costs. But state funding has stayed flat since 2021, at $20.4 million a year for all Maine jails. The budget spike caused tax rates in Penobscot County to go up by an average of roughly 16%.
Maine counties have struggled to fund their jails without raising tax rates for residents for years because of the growing costs for boarding inmates. County officials have asked the state for additional funding for the jail for five years, but this is the first time they have received any.
The bill initially sought to raise the annual funding given to Maine’s jails to $30 million. Many bills needed funding, and there wasn’t enough to approve that amount, Cushing said.
“While the $4 million doesn’t seem like a lot, that’s significant,” Commissioner Dan Tremble said. “A lot of people put a lot of work into this. I know we’re disappointed with that amount, but we could’ve gotten a lot less than that.”
There’s still a chance for future funding changes based on the studies and information given to the Legislature this year.
County officials, sheriffs and local officials spent much time in Augusta over the past six months asking for a portion of the state’s supplemental funding to be allocated to the jails. In Penobscot County, Sheriff Troy Morton, County Administrator Blair Tinkham, Treasurer Glenn Mower and multiple county commissioners made trips to meet with representatives.
Nearly every town in Greater Bangor wrote to the Legislature in support of the bill.
Lawmakers want to work with sheriffs and county officials on another plan to raise jail funding for multiple years before the next Legislative session starts, Cushing said.
“It was a good year in what we did to educate the Legislature. It was an unfortunate year with the amount of money they had available that they chose not to do what we thought was the right thing” and fund jails for longer than a single year, Cushing said.
With expenses continuing to rise, Cushing and other county commissioners are trying to engage town- and city-level officials to lobby for funding in upcoming sessions.
“It comes down to property taxes. If we don’t get the support from Augusta, we are to a limited degree allowed to get it from the property tax payer. But as we know painfully well here, when we exceed that cap, the money has to come from somewhere,” Cushing said.