Another private jail contractor is accusing Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat of racking up hundreds of thousands in unpaid bills, raising mounting concerns about financial decisions and possible mismanagement within the sheriff’s office.
Labat’s office owes software company Leo Technologies about $600,000, according to the company’s CEO, Scott Kernan. LeoTech suspended phone monitoring service to the jail in August after it wasn’t paid by the sheriff for seven months, documents show.
The company is the third private contractor in recent months to publicly accuse the sheriff of nonpayment. Two weeks ago, Strategic Security Corp. told the roughly 80 guards it contracted out to the Fulton Sheriff to not report to the jail and accused Labat of owing the company $1 million.
The revelations have exposed Labat to criticism as some county officials question how the sheriff is spending the $146 million allocated to his office this year.
“Where does the bleeding stop? Is another contract going to come next week? I don’t want to be any part of any precedent saying it’s OK to spend taxpayer’s money without accountability,” Fulton County Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman said in a Wednesday interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In a written statement, Fulton County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Natalie Ammons pushed back against accusations by Pitts and other county officials that the sheriff is mismanaging the budget.
“These accusations are unfounded, and the Chairman’s statements regarding our funding are misleading,” Ammons wrote.
Ammons statement blamed the fiscal challenges on the Fulton County Commission, which approves Labat’s annual budget. She said the sheriff’s budget in 2024 decreased by more than $3 million. The sheriff’s office also received a drastic reduction in its overtime budget, which had a negative budgetary impact of more than $7 million, she said.
LeoTech, which lists its office in Texas, says it identified and analyzed Fulton County inmate phone calls using its cloud-based software. Between December 2021 and July 2024, the company says its software transcribed 63 million minutes of inmate phone calls for the Fulton sheriff’s office, according to a report Kernan, the CEO, provided to the AJC.
The company’s systems would flag conversations involving contraband and violence, among other things, for further investigation by the sheriff’s office. Over that two and half year period, the company reported 759 calls related to facility security, 152 related to staff corruption and 219 related to contraband, according to the report.
Kernan, in an email to the AJC, described his company’s service as a “common-sense public safety requirement” that enhances safety in the jail by addressing drugs, violence and gang activity.
“Our technology mitigates those factors significantly,” Kernan wrote.
LeoTech’s unpaid invoices with the Fulton sheriff’s office date back to November 2023 and averaged $73,000 per month, according to a demand letter sent to Labat in July.
The episode is the latest in an ongoing saga between Labat and several county officials, some of which have accused Labat of mismanaging his office’s budget. As a state constitutional officer, Labat wields the power and autonomy to grant contracts without having to go through the typical county oversight process for Fulton contracts. The contracts for Strategic Security and Leo Tech were signed unilaterally by the sheriff’s office, records show.
The public controversy over contracting have opened Labat to sharp criticism. At a Fulton County Commission meeting last Wednesday, Labat’s staff asked commissioners for an additional $5.9 million to pay LeoTech, Strategic Security and other contractors. The sheriff’s office said the additional funding was needed to cover back payments and contracts through the end of the year.
Abdur-Rahman was among the commissioners who voted to deny additional funding to the sheriff’s office. She says she needs to hear more from Labat directly.
“I cannot and will not write a blank check for anyone in Fulton County,” she said.
Fulton Commission Chairman Robb Pitts told the AJC the county is now reviewing other sheriff contracts, including the sheriff’s commissary and telephone contracts, which are major drivers of revenue for the jail. He added he will no longer support any increase in funding for the sheriff.
“If we agree to pay what he’s asking for now, then next week it will be something else,” Pitts said. “So the question is: Where does it end? Well it has ended with me.”
Labat is a first-term sheriff who easily won the Democratic primary in May and is expected to win reelection in November. Labat will face write-in candidate Charles Rambo in the general election; there is no Republican challenger.
In October, the County Commission rescinded $2.1 million in emergency funding to the sheriff after it discovered a jail software company, Talitrix, had underdelivered on a contract it had signed with Labat earlier that year. Talitrix sued the sheriff’s office in June, alleging the sheriff’s office owed the company $865,000 on its contract.
In November, the commission abolished the sheriff’s inmate welfare fund after commissioners discovered the money had been used for consultants and promotional events.
Fulton Sheriff spokeswoman Ammons said the move to take away the sheriff’s control of the inmate welfare fund amounted to a multi-million dollar budget cut and “limited the Sheriff’s ability to provide vital goods and services to Fulton County detainees.”
The CEOs of the two private contractors that pulled out of the jail say interruption of their services diminishes the safety at the facility, for inmates and guards alike. They said they were left with little choice because the sheriff wasn’t paying its bills.
Four inmates have died in the custody of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office this year, including a person who died at the Atlanta City Detention Center on Monday. At least 24 inmates died in custody over a two-year period through the end of 2023, according to sheriff’s office data.
Kernan said they are ready to resume their call-monitoring service at the jail, but must first work out the funds the sheriff office owes for months of work that went unpaid.
“We are hopeful that these past due payments can be made current and on-going funding secured so that we may continue to provide these critical services to the county of Fulton,” Kernan said.
