State considers compensating county jails for mental health triage
BUFFALO — The Wyoming Department of Health is considering directly compensating county jails for housing and treating inmates awaiting a mental health assessment at the state psychiatric facility.
The proposal, still in the early stages, was discussed during a Wyoming Legislature Joint Judiciary Committee meeting on May 19.
Stefan Johansson, director of the state health department, estimated in a report to the committee that, based on the current demand for mental health services, the agency would need roughly $3 million per biennium, assuming a $100 per diem reimbursement rate.
This would apply to people who are incarcerated awaiting a Title 7 evaluation, which determines whether suspects, given their mental condition, can be held responsible for the alleged crime.
Johansson said at the meeting that the proposal would help address capacity issues at the Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston. The facility is Wyoming’s only state-run psychiatric hospital, and it has dealt with staffing shortages compounded by increased need, which has created a long waitlist for services, Johansson told the committee.
“We have total sympathy with our sheriffs and jails who are saying, ‘Hey, at the very least, compensate us. This is taking a lot of staff time, (and) it’s not the most appropriate setting,’” Johannson said. “When combined with other potential options, this could be a huge component of making this system better.”
During the meeting, health department personnel also noted the department’s recent changes to funding for community mental health centers that prioritize services for patients at risk of needing state hospital or law enforcement intervention. This, and recruitment and retention initiatives, are all aimed at creating more capacity in the state hospital.
Allen Thompson, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, told the committee that sheriffs around the state are open to the discussion, though several questions remain, including which entity would pay for medications for a person in a county jail, as well as what would be a fair compensation rate for counties taking this on.
Thompson told the Bulletin in September that in the past few years law enforcement statewide has had to take on more mental health cases with fewer resources.
During the committee meeting, he noted that jails are impacted financially – medication costs and overtime pay – and struggle with recruitment and retention of staff in some cases.
“Sheriffs would very much like to see wait times diminished across the board for all persons in need of mental health treatment and making sure they’re placed in appropriate facilities,” Thompson told the committee. “Secondarily, they would like a mechanism for reimbursement for those affected by these long-term and very time-consuming inmates.”
Johnson County Sheriff Rod Odenbach said in an interview that Johnson County’s detention center rarely sees inmates awaiting a Title 7 evaluation – he remembers two in the past year, both of whom were already bonded out at the time of the actual evaluation.
He said that he understands that compensation would be beneficial for jails that often house people in this situation. Still, if the Legislature moves forward with this model, Odenbach said that his concern would be whether it would be less expensive for these inmates to be in jails than at the mental hospital in Evanston.
“I’m afraid they would leave them in there and it would slow the process down,” he said. “I don’t know that that would happen, but that’s my fear.”
While detention officers receive suicide prevention and mental health training, they are not mental health professionals, he said.
Staffing levels at the detention center mean it’s taxing on the system to house someone who is suicidal and is monitored on video constantly and in-person every 15 minutes. It’s also not ideal for the person who is incarcerated, Odenbach said.
“We play the cards we’re dealt – if it happens, we’ll deal with it,” he said. “My only concern is we’d get the people that are in a mental health crisis or criminally charged and then we just sit on them because they’re paying us to do it. Even at $100 a day, that’s probably pretty close to covering a regular inmate, but you add the mental health issues on top of that, it’d be way more.”
Rep. Marilyn Connolly, R-Buffalo, mentioned the proposal from the committee at a Johnson County Commission meeting on May 20. She said that she sees it as a potential drain on local governments.
“This next session is a budget session, and we’re going to have to really work hard to keep funding coming to the local governments, our towns and counties and cities,” Connolly said. “I think there is some thought out there that you (the county) just don’t need any help, but Sen. (Barry) Crago (R-Buffalo) and I will work hard to keep that funding coming as best we can.”
Johnson County and Prosecuting Attorney Tucker Ruby said in response that mental health holds in local jails were envisioned in statute to happen “only in very rare circumstances.”
“To say, ‘Oh, well, you know, the jails need to step up,’ is just a crazy idea that doesn’t make any sense,” Ruby said. “If there is a fix for mental health, it is for the state to acknowledge that it has to be a loss leader. We’re not going to make money in mental health, but if we don’t put a lot of money towards it, it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse and worse until we have a very serious problem.”
The judiciary committee will consider the ideas proposed by the health department at its next meeting in August.
This story was published on June 19, 2025.