Fulton Co. Board votes against giving sheriff’s office money to pay outstanding invoices

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — At Wednesday’s Fulton County Board of Commissioners meeting, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Chief of Staff asked commissioners to give the agency nearly $6 million to cover outstanding expenses through the end of the calendar year.

Michael Shoates, from the sheriff’s office, spoke with member of the county commission about what invoices remained unpaid and attributed it, in part, to budgeting conflicts due to how the current fiscal year had been planned out.

Commissioner Bob Ellis asked Shoates “what is the special reason we are discussing” the invoices from the sheriff’s office, saying that each part of the Fulton County Government has outstanding invoices they have to pay.

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Shoates told Commissioner Bob Ellis that the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office was “at a point where we need your assistance” and that while the FCSO executive officers “took full responsibility” for managing the funding allocations from the commission, they needed help. During his explanation, he alluded to issues between the board and the sheriff’s office, as far as budget planning was concerned.

“We need the board’s assistance however, regarding funding, and hopefully we can work things out in a more collaborative manner to ensure that our jail is safe for our staff and our residents,” Shoates said. “There have been significant changes in our budget and access to funds. Collectively, the county and the sheriff’s office, with the BOC, did not have an opportunity to address this because the fiscal year 2024 budget process was already underway.”

Then Shoates asked them for $5.9 million to cover expenses and unpaid invoices through the end of the 2024 calendar year.

Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said the commission had to decide if the county itself was responsible for the payments, since the services for the sheriff’s office were provided to the county, saying this issue was what “the emergency” was.

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Questions from the commissioners came soon after Shoates finished his opening statements.

Sharon Whitmore, the County CFO, said that the sheriff’s office provided the commission with information about their outstanding invoices over the weekend, after 80 contracted jail staff walked off site over lack of payment.

Whitmore said the document shows the sheriff’s department has more than $2 million in outstanding invoices for third party entities, including Strategic Security Corp., LeoTech, Allied Security and Axon, a law enforcement technology company.

She said the sheriff’s office did not identify the contracts that had gone unpaid and an exact amount of “truly outstanding” costs was not clear. Additionally, costs for emergency food service provided to staff and inmates during the emergency kitchen shutdown had also remained an outstanding invoice.

As of Sept. 4, some of the invoices were paid, according to Whitmore, bringing the overall total down, but still more than $2 million owed for various invoices.

Whitmore said annual costs, according to the sheriff’s office document, rose past $16.2 million, but the amount that had not been budgeted for by the sheriff’s office was about $8.6 million. The CFO said there was a possibility overtime charges may occur, but that they also would not have a funding source with how the current budget was set.

She said, answering a question from Board Chair Robb Pitts, that at most the county could potentially pay $2.289 million, less than the $5.9 million requested by the sheriff’s office.

Shoates said some of the outstanding invoices from Strategic Security including overtime payments, though Whitmore said her own calculations on outstanding balances left overtime payments separate from normal invoices. He said that in addition to outstanding payments, the sheriff’s office was requesting the $5.9 million to cover both unpaid invoices and payments that had yet to be requested for the remainder of the year, particularly for jail contractors.

Commission Vice Chair Khadijah Abdur-Rahman asked Shoates to clarify that this was an emergency request for additional funding, and if so, why was it not Sheriff Pat Labat himself asking the commission for help.

“It’s clearly an emergency, I’m just wondering why the sheriff’s not here today in light of the situation,” Abdur-Rahman said.

Shoates said there were “several emergencies at the jail” that had needed his attention, explaining the sheriff’s absence from Wednesday’s meeting.

After a lengthy back and forth between Shoates and members of the Fulton County Commission, including a request for better accountability from the sheriff on spending and funding uses, the vote to provide the sheriff’s office with $5.9 million failed.

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