VIDALIA — District Attorney Brad Burget presented Monday night the draft of an ordinance designed to deter inmate medical expenses to the Concordia Parish Police Jury.

The jury decided to table the ordinance, so they could fine-tune it. Overall, jurors were pleased with the effort, however.

“I feel like this is a good start,” Juror Randy Temple said. “You have to start somewhere.”

The ordinance works by pulling money from the detainee’s commissary account, which Burget described as basically a prison debit card account. The money from that account can be used to buy items that a prisoner would not otherwise have access to, such as a candy bar. The ordinance would apply to prisoners in Concordia Parish not housed in a Department of Corrections Facility.

Burget said prisoners try to spend parish money needlessly to try and move their court hearing up or to receive a shorter sentence, since the government has to treat them.

The ordinance is designed to charge detainees a co-payment for services sought outside of the prison. As is, medical and dental visits require a $7 co-payment, and a $3 co-payment is charged per prescription, including refills. Burget said jurors may want to tweak those numbers.

“As it is currently written, it basically acts as a deterrent,” Burget said. “If the prisoner knows it will cost him to see the doctor, he may not do it. He is more concerned with getting his bottle of Coke, than spending the parish money unnecessarily.”

Burget said if the prisoner was overdrawn on his or her commissary account, that when the prisoner receives money in the account, the jury is among those first in line to be reimbursed for the co-payment.

Burget said Louisiana law allows the police jury to charge up to the cost of the visit or prescription, but he did not feel like charging that much worked, since commissary funds typically do not accumulate a lot of money.

“I find it is sufficient as is,” Juror Jimmy Jerningan said. “If I have $10 in my account from my family, and it is going to cost me $7 to go to the doctor, I will think.”

Juror Jerry Beatty said it was also something that could be looked at five months down the road to see if it is still working.

Jernigan said he was pleased to see the direction prison medical costs have gone since Burget started looking into it.

“I’d like to commend Brad for the job he has done,” Jernigan said. “Last year, it was costing us $20,000 a month. Last month, it was less than $5,000.”

In other news, the jury elected officers for the upcoming year, renewing Melvin Ferrington as president and Tommy “Red” Tiffee as vice president.

The jury voted to pay $5,061 in dues to Kisatchie Delta, the parish’s grant writers.

The vote passed 7-1, with Juror Joe Parker dissenting.

“The state is in bad shape, and it is hard to get funds now,” Parker said. “But back when there was money floating around, I feel like if we had gone in hitting hard we would have gotten it. I believe we will get it, but I think we would have gotten it sooner.”

The jury accepted four gravel bids from Blain Sand and Gravel of Natchez.

$25 per ton, C-1 gravel.

$25 per ton, C-2 gravel.

$22 per ton, C-3 gravel.

$21.50 per ton, wash maintenance gravel.

The jury accepted one gravel bid from Andrew’s Trucking of Olla, La.

$12.75 per ton, heavy clay pit run gravel.

The jury accepted three chemical bids from Red River Specialties of Shreveport.

$15.40 per gallon, Roundup.

$9.80 per gallon, Razor Pro.

$49 per pound, Oust.

The jury approved $150 in registration fees for two employees to attend the Pest Control Meeting Jan. 31 – Feb 2, 2011.

The jury approved $300 in dues to Northeast Delta RC&D.

The jury approved $446 in NACO dues.