Contract security officers leave jail in Atlanta after nonpayment of contract

ATLANTA — Some security officers at a jail in Atlanta that is under federal investigation walked off the job after the Fulton County sheriff's office failed to pay money owed to the third-party contractor that employs them.

The Fulton County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that it is facing ''a significant budget crisis'' and owed an outstanding balance of more than $1 million to Strategic Security Corp. The company notified its employees Thursday afternoon that the contract had ended, that they would be clocked out at 2:15 p.m. and that they should not report to work at the jail going forward.

The sheriff's office said that ''created an immediate safety issue'' at the county's main jail and employees from all divisions were sent to staff the jail.

There were 17 contract officers working at the time, 13 at the main jail in Atlanta and four at the south annex in Union City, sheriff's office spokesperson Natalie Ammons said. There are three shifts in a 24-hour period and there were a total of 74 contractors working on rotation to cover all of the shifts, she said.

Joe Sordi, CEO of Strategic Security Corp., told reporters Friday that his employees were hired to do jobs that did not involve direct contact with people housed in the jail. From the start of the contract in July 2023, the sheriff's office immediately fell behind on payment and never fully paid what it owed in any single billing cycle.

Ammons said the sheriff's office did pay some bills in full during the life of the contract and that the current invoice is 90 days past due.

Under the terms of the contract, the company could have suspended services once the sheriff's office defaulted on two billing cycles, Sordi said. But they didn't do that because of a ''moral obligation'' to the officers and to the sheriff's deputies working in the jail. Instead, he said, they continued to pay their employees and tried to engage the sheriff's office, which kept making small payments to ''keep us at bay'' but never paid the entire principal due.

Sordi said that Thursday was the ''first time in several months'' that the sheriff returned his calls.

''We spoke and his answer was that, ‘We simply just don't have the money,''' Sordi said.

Sordi said his company is ''actively pursuing formal measures to reengage Fulton County'' if the sheriff's office wants to continue services. But he also said he is ''exploring any method possible'' to secure payment of the money owed.

Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts released a statement Friday saying that the sheriff's office signed the contract to provide staffing for watchtowers within the jail without the involvement of the county purchasing department. He said the commissioners approved funding as part of the fiscal year 2024 budget, allocating $1.3 million based on the contract usage at the time and with input from the sheriff's office.

It wasn't until this month that the sheriff's office notified county management that it had already spent more than a $1 million over the budgeted amount, Pitts said. Funding for the sheriff's office and the jail has increased by 66% since 2019, but the sheriff ''has consistently failed to demonstrate basic budget management practices,'' Pitts said.

Labat said that nearly 50 of the contract security officers came to the jail Thursday evening and were given conditional offers of employment and some were able to work immediately after completing paperwork.

Sordi said Labat's efforts to hire his employees and the failure to pay from the start showed that the ''agreement was entered in bad faith.''

The U.S. Department of Justice last year opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in the county, citing violence and filthy conditions. Federal authorities specifically mentioned the September 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson, one of more than a dozen people who has died in county custody over the last two years. Thompson, 35, died in a bedbug-infested cell in the jail's psychiatric wing.

A state legislative committee formed last year to examine conditions at the jail concluded last week that more cooperation was needed between top county officials.