A jail administrator who pushed to establish a state women's prison in southwestern North Dakota said Monday that the project may not offer county jails enough money for inmate counseling and medical care.

The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the proposed rates for housing female inmates in local jails were discussed at length during the Legislature, and that the administrator, Norbert Sickler, had endorsed them.

"Our belief is the legislative intent was … these are the rates that we reimburse the counties," said Elaine Little, the state corrections director. "I'm not sure how much flexibility we have."

Sen. Ed Kringstad, R-Bismarck, who helped negotiate the corrections department's final two-year budget, said the proffered rates are more than the state pays to a private prison operator in Appleton, Minn., to house some inmates.

Of Sickler's reaction to the proposed rates during the Legislature, Kringstad said: "He was real happy with them."

Sickler spoke Monday at a meeting of the Legislative Council's interim Budget Committee on Government Services, which will be monitoring the progress of an initiative to move the state prison system's female inmates into county jails.

During the 2003 Legislature, Little and Gov. John Hoeven had advocated establishing a new state women's prison at Jamestown, using a building on the campus of the state psychiatric hospital.

The proposed lockup would have been located near an existing prison, the James River Correctional Center, which was itself created by remodeling another building on the hospital campus.

The James River center houses most of the female inmates in North Dakota's prison system, who number about 100. It has an average of about 1,170 inmates daily.

Sickler and other advocates of county jails coaxed the Legislature into dumping the Jamestown plan, in favor of allowing county lockups to bid on housing women inmates.

Sickler is administrator of the Southwest Multi-County Correction Center in Dickinson, which is a regional county jail.

He is helping to develop a former Roman Catholic boarding school and convent in New England, about 30 miles south of Dickinson, into a women's prison. Sickler said Monday that some employees have already been hired, including a drug and alcohol treatment administrator and a program director.

The state corrections department is advertising for jails that are willing to meet the state's terms. Little said jails in Jamestown and Devils Lake, along with the Southwest Multi-County facilities in Dickinson and New England, have asked for applications. The deadline for responding is July 7.

The corrections department's request for proposals offers payment rates of $72.15 per day for women who do not require drug and alcohol treatment, and $84.15 daily for those who do. The higher treatment rate would drop back to $72.15 after six weeks' incarceration.

Jails would also be paid $84.15 daily for inmates while they undergo a prison orientation program, during which officials determine an inmate's counseling and rehabilitation needs. The orientation lasts four weeks.

Little said the Devils Lake jail has not indicated any interest in offering inmate orientation, while the Jamestown and New England lockups are willing to do so.

Both rates include $5.15 daily per inmate for medical treatment. At Monday's committee meeting, Sickler wondered if the sum was high enough, particularly if an inmate needed costly hospital care, such as an appendectomy or heart transplant.

"We may be able to do it, and then again we may not," Sickler said. "Right now, we find it's going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to take on that particular gamble."

He also questioned whether the state was paying for enough drug and alcohol counseling. The New England prison, as it prepares to accept women inmates, has been planning a program that would last at least 12 weeks, Sickler said.

"It all depends upon the individual, to what stage of treatment they need," he said. "I think to take a look just at six weeks, and cut it off - we have some people that are very needy here, and I'm not sure we can provide what is needed in only six weeks."

Kringstad said county jail advocates had told lawmakers during the Legislature that the rates were acceptable.

Their assurances helped persuade legislators to embrace the county option, rather than paying to build a new state prison for women. The final details of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's budget bill incorporated the rate assumptions that the counties said were acceptable, Kringstad said.

"I was surprised at what (Sickler) said," Kringstad said. "So was everybody else."