Orange County\u2019s negotiations with the U.S. Marshals Service have continued into April, past the agreed-upon deadline of March 31, Mayor Jerry Demings said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Demings said discussions went on right up to the deadline and the two sides are still talking without a deal in place. He said the ongoing shutdown of much of the Department of Homeland Security may be to blame for a deal not being consummated at this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears that because of the partial federal government shutdown, perhaps they\u2019re not where they need to be on making a decision,\u201d he said. \u201cThe ball\u2019s in their court now. We hope to hear from them soon about the reimbursement rate.\u201d<\/p>\n
At issue is how much the federal government reimburses the county for housing federal inmates, including those held at the jail solely on immigration related violations. The county is paid $88 per day, though it maintains its actual cost is $180 per day.<\/p>\n
The Board of County Commissioners is expected to be updated on the situation at its April 21 meeting, officials said.<\/p>\n
The county had been seeking a higher reimbursement rate since at least August of last year amid the Trump administration ramping up its mass deportations, resulting in multitudes more immigrants detained in the local jail than in previous years. A major spike from December to January \u2013 from about 30 people at the jail daily on just immigration charges to more than 140 \u2013 strained the jail\u2019s resources, staffing and space, Public Safety Director Danny Banks said at the time.<\/p>\n
Frustrated with a lack of progress on an updated deal, Demings sent a letter to the U.S. Marshals Service in February setting a mid-March deadline to negotiate the rate. The county also threatened to cancel the deal altogether \u2013 which would force the feds to find another Central Florida jail to hold its inmates and detainees.<\/p>\n
Soon after, the Marshals Service sought an extension to the end of March, citing the large increase Orange County was seeking, \u201cand it would be beneficial to both parties in terms of a favorable outcome if he extends his deadline to March 31.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Marshals didn\u2019t respond to emailed questions about the status of the negotiation.<\/p>\n
Demings agreed to the extension, saying he believes the federal agency is negotiating in good faith and ultimately will increase its reimbursement to the county \u2013 though perhaps not to the level he\u2019s seeking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re confident the rate is going to go up,\u201d he said. \u201cHow much it goes up is still the unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County\u2019s negotiations with the U.S. Marshals Service have continued into April, past the agreed-upon deadline of March…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,114,266,5742,115,1335,139,141,140,99,109],"class_list":["post-214832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-national-politics","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}