The cities of Victorville and Adelanto have opted to divorce from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Work Release program after being asked to provide medical treatment for inmate workers injured on the job – a shift in liability they deemed too dangerous. The story reported in the Daily Press says the key cause for the cities’ concerns is that they may be held liable for all workers’ compensation benefit obligations and expenses for injured workers. According to Victorville City Manager Doug Robertson, this responsibility represents a stark departure from the past, when the Sheriff’s Department would have handled the administration of the claim, including legal or medical expenses. “Our biggest concern is that an inmate worker could go from earning nothing for working all day to realizing a pretty hefty claim amount if they were injured on the job,” Robertson said.

In February, Victorville informed sheriff’s officials that they would be terminating their agreement when new deals apparently shifted the liability from the county to the city. The city of Adelanto also opted not to renew its deal earlier this month for the same reason. At its core, Victorville’s hesitation comes from not wanting to incentivize injuries.

Having participated since 1991 in the program, which allows inmates to serve time through manual labor, the city recently had used 20 to 30 workers on the weekends for tasks including pulling weeds and aiding code enforcement. But Robertson said the liability shift is akin to 20 to 30 potential windfalls every week, a risk he called “huge.”

To fill the void left by the loss of inmate workers, the city recently included nearly $200,000 in its budget for part-time hours. Robertson said the known cost, despite a higher initial investment, is worth it if only to get rid of the liability.

Representing the Victor Valley as the vice chair on the county’s Board of Supervisors, 1st District Supervisor Robert Lovingood said the cities’ exodus from the program has not gone unnoticed. “We want to see the return of the program,” Lovingood said. “We believe we want to restore this. This is something, again, we’ve been paying attention to.”

But not all municipalities are flinching after the change. “The Town has chosen to continue our contract with the Sheriff’s Department for the use of inmate labor,” Apple Valley spokeswoman Kathie Martin said. “In weighing the cost of bearing the worker’s comp burden with the value provided as a labor source, it still makes good business sense to continue.” Martin said Apple Valley runs a lean organization that needs the supplemental workforce provided by inmate workers, who clean the animal shelter, maintain grounds, repair roads and also clean illegal dumping sites on weekends.

Hesperia spokeswoman Rachel Molina said their contract with the Sheriff’s Department actually already included provisions for the city to provide workers’ compensation insurance for the inmates, so the new contract “did not present a significant change.”

Grand Terrace, which traces its program participation back to 1987, also opted to renew a deal this year despite acknowledging it would not know the incurred costs of the liability shift for at least a year.

Still, it remains unclear how many other cities, like Victorville and Adelanto, might be turned off by the change and how possible subsequent program dropouts could affect the program as a whole.