Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis took direct shots at the Fulton County Board of Commissioners this week, blaming the board for the condition of the Fulton County Jail and asking for approval of additional funds for her office and the sheriff’s office.
“We need the Fulton County Commission to do their job. The reality is the sheriff cannot do his job, nor the district attorney hers, if it is not financed properly,” Willis said.
Willis encouraged Fulton County citizens to call their commissioners, while the board is working on the 2025 budget, to ensure the two law enforcement agencies get the money they need.
Speaking at a press conference Monday about dropping crime rates in Atlanta, she said her office does not have enough attorneys or investigators to “continue to excel and to make progress for our city.”
“At some point, we have to put blame where blame lies, and where it lies is with Chairman Robb Pitts and those six commissioners that sit with him,” Willis said. “They have a duty that, in two weeks, they need to issue a budget for our sheriff and for this district attorney’s office that does the job.”
Credit: Jozsef Papp
Credit: Jozsef Papp
A county spokesperson said in a statement that commissioners are expected to adopt the 2025 budget on Jan. 22.
If the additional funding request of more than $134 million from the various justice agencies and courts were to be granted, it would require a millage rate increase of 1.7 mills — or nearly a 20% property tax increase — the spokesperson said. The agencies include the offices of the sheriff, district attorney, Solicitor General, Public Defender and Marshal, plus the State, Superior, Magistrate, Probate and Juvenile courts.
“The Board must carefully weigh budgetary requests from departments against the tax burden of Fulton County property owners,” the statement reads.
Additionally, last year’s budget for the DA’s office was $36.6 million, compared to $24.6 million in 2019, which amounts for a five-year budget increase of 48.7%, the spokesperson said.
The latest 2025 revised proposed budget for the DA’s office is $39.4 million, around a 7% increase from the 2024 budget. For the sheriff’s office, the latest revised proposed budget for 2025 is $152 million, about a 3.5% increase from the 2024 budget of $146 million.
Willis blamed the commission for the “disgusting” jail on Rice Steet.
“This is not on the mayor’s shoulders; it’s not on Atlanta Police Department’s shoulders. It sits on Commissioner Robb Pitt’s shoulders, and we ought to demand that they have humane conditions,” Willis said. “We ought to demand that the DA’s office is financed in a way where we can properly prosecute crimes, and citizens ought to call and say we don’t want people to live in these inhumane conditions.”
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice and Fulton County reached a legal agreement, known as a consent decree, to resolve the deplorable and unsafe conditions at the Fulton County Jail. The agreement was approved by a federal judge last week and requires the county and the sheriff’s office to address a number of problems outlined in a November report, which found jail conditions were “abhorrent, unconstitutional” and violated the Eighth and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Eighth Amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment, and the 14th protects against the government taking away life, liberty or property without due process of law.
Last year, the Board of Commissioners committed to investing up to $300 million in facility improvements. The county spokesperson said a project manager has been hired for the facility improvements and bonds are expected to be issued this year.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who touted the reduction in crime in Atlanta on Monday, said the jail presents the challenge of an overcrowded space that is structurally falling apart. He said the city decided to help Labat deal with some of the issues in an attempt to mitigate the situation.
“The City of Atlanta saw the inhumane conditions at Rice Street, where there were three people to a cell and some people were in the hallways, and that’s just not humane,” Dickens said. “So we allowed Fulton County to enter into an agreement with us for our (Atlanta City Detention Center).”
The agreement, signed in December 2022, allows 700 detainees to be moved from the Rice Street county jail to be housed at the downtown city jail at a price of $50 per detainee per day, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
Dickens said the sheriff’s office is responsible for employing staff to monitor county inmates, but due to staffing issues the sheriff’s office has housed just 400 to 500 detainees instead of the 700 expected.
“The city right now is still in that engagement with Fulton County and offering and allowing them to use the space at ACDC (Atlanta City Detention Center) and we’ll continue that,” Dickens said. “We are aware of the DOJ concerns. These are our citizens, our residents of this community, that are inside of Rice Street (jail), and we want them to always have an experience that is humane.”
He said the jail is old and was built for a county that has tripled in size since construction began in the 1980s.
“The county leadership, the sheriff and the citizens have to demand more in terms of improvements,” he said.
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