Less than a week after a private security firm pulled its guards off the job at Fulton County Jail due to months of nonpayment on a county contract, Fulton Sheriff Patrick Labat’s office acknowledged Wednesday the financial problems run deeper than nonpayment on just one contract.
Labat’s chief of staff Michael Shoates told the Fulton County Commission at its meeting Wednesday that the sheriff’s office owes more than $2 million to the security firm and other contractors. Shoates asked the commission for nearly $6 million in additional funding to not just pay outstanding bills, but also to fund other contracts held by the sheriff through the end of the year.
Shoates said it was the duty of the sheriff’s office to manage its funding.
“We take full responsibility,” Shoates said. “We need the board’s assistance, however.”
Labat did not attend the meeting. A motion to provide the $2 million needed to pay the sheriff’s outstanding bills failed on a commission vote.
Last week, about 80 private guards did not report to the jail after their company, Strategic Security Corp., announced it was pulling services to the jail due to an outstanding bill for $1 million. In a news conference Friday, Strategic Security CEO Joseph Sordi said the sheriff had not paid the company for several months.
The additional county funding requested Wednesday is needed to cover the sheriff’s unpaid invoices with Strategic Services as well as other contractors, including $643,000 owed to technology company LeoTech and $449,000 owed to law enforcement hardware and software company Axon, according to Fulton County CFO Sharon Whitmore.
County officials last week said they were blindsided by the private guards’ walkout and didn’t know about the $1 million outstanding bill to Strategic Security until a few weeks prior.
In a news conference last week, Labat said his office was underfunded. But Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts noted on Friday the sheriff’s budget has grown 66% since he came into office in January 2021.
“The board is tired of his shenanigans,” Pitts told the AJC last week, referring to Labat. “We have given him everything he’s asked for.”
Shoates attributed some of the shortfall to the commission’s decision to abolish the inmate welfare fund last year.
The commission withdrew money from the fund, which draws money from jail commissary sales and inmate phone call charges, in November. This was after commissioners discovered the money had been used for promotional events, umbrellas and hats, a “wild hog supper,” photo booths and jugglers.
The vote Wednesday to deny the funding request raises questions of whether the commission will fund the sheriff’s shortfall of more than $2 million. Fulton Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman said she’d like to hear directly from Labat before she votes for more taxpayer funding.
“I need to have a conversation with the sheriff,” Abdur-Rahman said.
