With a goal of getting out from under federal court supervision by the end of the year, Fulton County’s sheriff said he needs more money to hire 339 additional deputies and jailers to attain the minimum staffing and clear the last major hurdle required by an order that has been in place since 2005.
In a document filed in federal court Tuesday, lawyers for the Fulton County commissioners and sheriff Ted Jackson pointed out that the second quarter of this year — April through June — was the first time since the lawsuit was filed that the number of employees hired exceeded the number leaving their jobs at the jail.
The court document did not detail how much it will cost to add positions but it said the Board of Commissioners in January of this year approved a budget in excess of $100 million for personnel and equipment for the jail. The document does not say if the current budget could cover the cost of the additional positions.
The county court filing says it has streamlined hiring to shorten the time it takes to go from application to starting work and it is going to do routine surveys of current employees to determine how happy or unhappy they are with their work.
The court document lays out the county's jail staffing plan that will ensure it is in complete compliance by the end December with the almost 10-year-old court order.
The Southern Center for Human Rights, which brought the lawsuit in 2004 on behalf of inmates, could not be reached for comment Tuesday night. But the organization has said it wanted the order to remain in place for at least six months after 1,300 new locks were installed on all cell doors; a task that was completed this summer at a cost to taxpayers of $4.8 million.
Fulton’s jail has been under court oversight since 2005, when lawyers for the county and the inmates reached an agreement on how to fix the facility.
The lawsuit filed in May 2004 detailed crowded, dirty and dangerous conditions. The suit described a short-staffed facility where more than 3,300 inmates were crammed into space built for 2,250. Inmates and employees were frequently assaulted. Basic plumbing, electric and ventilation systems had broken down. Inmates lived with the stench of raw sewage and slept on the floor.
Progress has been slow, taking years to cross off most of the items on the to-do list and with action on some of the biggest problems begun only this year.
Renting beds in other jails has kept the inmate population far below the 2,500 cap, but staffing has remained a chronic problem that officials have not been able to address.
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