Sheriff’s Community Service Program provides more than $570,000 worth of labor


BOURNE
Barnstable County Sheriff James Cummings today released the 2017 calendar year statistics for his Community Service Inmate work crews and the news is sure to be well received by the dozens of Cape Cod municipal and non-profit entities that were project recipients.

The Sheriff’s four-to-six man work crews provided approximately $571,305* worth of donated inmate labor in 14 out of 15 of the Cape’s towns in 2017. Many non-profit organizations, government agencies and municipalities were able to take advantage of the Sheriff’s Community Service Program on more than one occasion to complete projects and much needed work that may have otherwise been too costly. The savings provided by the BCSO’s Community Service Work Program for the last three years, meanwhile, totals $1.86 million (or an annual average of $618,785).

Sheriff Cummings noted, “Almost all are projects are those that may not have been done otherwise due to financial restraints. Big or small, the undertakings were labor intensive and our inmate work crews provided a quality product at a great savings. Many job recipients were otherwise staring at ‘budget buster’ items.”

Some of the inmate work crew jobs were recurring such as off-loading for food pantries in Hyannis and Pocasset, but most were larger and more complicated undertakings. For example, in Barnstable four separate projects highlighted that town’s list of projects completed with the help of our inmate work crews including, landscaping and fence repairs at the Hyannis Library, carpentry and painting at Sturgis Charter School, a re-roofing job for Barnstable’s DPW and painting inside of the West Barnstable Library.

The Town of Bourne benefited from this program by utilizing inmate work crews to remodel the inside the Sagamore Beach fire station, build a new interior wall and make masonry repairs at police headquarters, power-wash and install a new garage door at Buzzard Bay’s Water District and install one shed and reconstruct another for the Bourne Library.

The BCSO Community Service Program also provided event tents for non-profit organizations, government entities and municipalities. This service saved non-profit and government agencies an additional $125,000 in 2017, money that enabled recipients to convert fundraising overhead into bottom line proceeds. “More money for the cause,” notes the Sheriff

*Note on calculation: Dollar amounts above are derived by multiplying inmate man-hours (19,120) by $29.88, which is considered the Massachusetts volunteer hourly labor value.

Media release and photos furnished by Barnstable Sheriff’s Office



CapeCod.com
737 West Main Street
Hyannis, MA 02601
Contact Us | Advertise Terms of Use 
Employment and EEO | Privacy