CENTRAL FALLS — “A City with A Bright Future.”

That’s the way Central Falls officials describe their miniscule burg of 1.5 square miles, one of the most densely populated cities in the nation.

Apparently, the future is so bright that those same officials have projected that the financially strapped Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility will deliver $1.2 million to the city’s coffers in the current fiscal year that started on July 1.

There’s one problem: nobody from Mayor Charles D. Moreau to Wyatt jail officials has any idea how the detention center will deliver the money. The jail has been reeling for more than a year since a Chinese national died while in the jail’s custody.

The prisoner’s death led to multiple criminal investigations and prompted the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to remove all of its 151 detainees and sever its ties with the jail. As a result, the jail’s average daily population has dropped and the jail suspended its $52,000 monthly payments to the city.

The city last received a payment in January.

Now, the city is expecting more than double the $525,000 it received in 2008.

A spokeswoman for Moreau, Cynthia Stern, said that the budget projection is based on research conducted by Azim Mazangonwalla, the city’s finance director. She said that he looked at other jails across New England of similar size and studied how much each of them paid their host communities.

She said that Mazangonwalla and Moreau ran the numbers by the board and Tammy Novo, the jail’s chief financial officer, and “they concurred on the number.”

Bill Fischer, spokesman for the board of directors that oversees the prison, said that never happened. He said that neither Novo nor anyone else on the jail’s staff worked with Mazangonwalla on the projections. He also said the board members had nothing to do with it.

“We did not provide data to help them prepare the budget,” Fischer said.

There is not much reason for optimism.

Figures that the jail provided show that the average daily prisoner population has ranged from a high of 633 in July to 558 in October. In 2008, before ICE withdrew its prisoners, the population was consistently at 680 prisoners and sometimes it exceeded 700.

Last Wednesday, the population was 595.

The government reimburses the jail $101.76 per prisoner a day; more prisoners housed there means more money for the privately run facility.

The money is necessary to pay the bondholders who financed the $106.3-million jail and its recent expansion. Twice a year, the jail makes bond payments of $4.4 million. Fischer said the last payment was made on July 15 and the jail had to dip into its $8.8-million reserve fund for $290,000 to make the payment. Since then, he said, the money has been returned to the reserve fund.

The next payment is due on Jan. 15, and Fischer said the jail plans to make the payment. The bond payment schedule runs twice a year through 2035.

Meanwhile, Michael V. Fair, principal of MVF Consulting LLC, of Middleton, Mass., is expected to complete his review of the operational and administrative workings at the jail soon. Fair, a former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, was hired for $44,000 at the urging of the jail’s major bondholders.

Stern, the spokeswoman for Moreau, said the mayor plans on “collecting [the $1.2 million projected] when the facility is turned around.”

She did not provide any details about how that could happen. There has been no evidence that ICE plans to return prisoners to the jail, and despite efforts from the prison administration, they have not been able to land more prisoners and return the jail to profitability.

Fischer, the spokesman for the Wyatt board, said he sees no way that the jail can meet the projections that Moreau placed in the budget.

“We wish we were in a position to make regular payments to Central Falls,” he said. “This is going to be a slow crawl to get back to where we used to be. It’s going to take some time.”BY THE NUMBERS Wyatt’s average daily population

June: 624

July: 633

August: 621

September: 582

October: 558

Population on Nov. 3: 595

UPDATE

Prisoner death

Victim: Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, a Chinese national, died on Aug. 6, 2008, while in custody at Wyatt jail. Ng had complained of excruciating back pain for months, but his pleas for help were ignored. Ng was suffering from cancer that went undiagnosed until the final days of his life.

Investigation: The FBI launched a criminal civil- rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding Ng’s death, trying to determine whether corrections officers and medical staff at Wyatt mistreated Ng.

Lawsuit: Lin Li Qu, Ng’s widow, and their two young sons filed a civil lawsuit against Wyatt, ICE and other jails, corrections officers and medical staff that had dealings with Ng.

bmalinow@projo.com