§ 14-6-51 — Emergency Prisoner Feeding Fund

(a) The Emergency Prisoner Feeding Fund is established and seven hundred fifty thousand dollars ($750,000) is automatically appropriated into the fund each state fiscal year beginning with the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025.
(b) The state Comptroller shall transfer monies from the General Fund to the emergency fund at the beginning of each state fiscal year or as soon as possible thereafter.
(c) The emergency fund shall not exceed a total accumulated amount of one million dollars ($1,000,000).
(d) The funds may be expended from time to time upon joint application by a county commission and the sheriff of a county in the case of an unforeseeable emergency cost overrun in the Prisoner Feeding Fund in the county treasury.
(e) This application shall be submitted to the Department of Finance and shall be supported by sworn statements by the chair of the county commission and the sheriff stating the reason for the need for emergency funding and the reason for the unforeseeable cost overrun.
(f) The department may demand any pertinent financial records prior to disbursing any emergency funding.
(g) The department shall determine when an application qualifies for disbursement of funds, but shall not consider the transfer of funds from another local source to continue feeding prisoners as grounds to deny the application.
(h) A county commission may not receive from this emergency fund per year more than 80 percent of the actual cost overrun, as substantiated by financial records, up to a maximum of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) per year.

Legislative History

(Act 2019-133, §3; Act 2024-251, §1.)