Posted on Thu, Nov. 05, 2009

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Trust eroding in jail consultant

Maybe in the end, the results from the Justice Concepts Inc. consulting firm will prove the majority on the Sedgwick County Commission right. County taxpayers certainly can hope so, because the county's control of the population of the Sedgwick County Jail is the only thing standing between them and another multimillion-dollar jail expansion.

But the majority commissioners' confidence in the Missouri-based firm increasingly looks questionable.

Justice Concepts hasn't fulfilled the terms of a $124,616 contract that expired five months ago, yet commissioners voted 3-2 Wednesday to pay the firm another $28,500 for work performed outside the scope of the original contract.

And though the county is using multiple strategies to try to counter jail overcrowding, the challenge remains. When the consultant's contract was signed in August 2008 — obligating the firm to show the county how to cut the numbers by 25 percent — the jail's average daily population was 1,592. Recent days have found it at more than 1,700.

The dollar amount of Wednesday's payment is less significant than the principle — that the county would pay more money to a firm that has yet to fulfill the terms of a contract that expired June 4.

The contract called for 35 percent payment up front, 45 percent upon "substantial" completion of goals and 20 percent upon of completion of the project. So far, according to county staff, Justice Concepts has done 60 percent of the work and been paid for about 63 percent of the work.

"The contract was over. It's only 60 percent completed. We're being billed for extra services that were not authorized," said Commissioner Dave Unruh, calling it "unreasonable" to be charged for extra work now.

It's further confounding that the commission expects to consider Nov. 19 whether to extend Justice Concepts' contract for 18 months at a cost of $228,500. Is that really the next logical step?

And Wednesday's discussion shed no light on why the firm hasn't complied with Commissioner Tim Norton's multiple requests for a single page of information — something that would have fallen within the scope of the original contract.

Part of a consultant's job is bringing disparate stakeholders together to find compromise. So Commissioner Gwen Welshimer wasn't persuasive Wednesday in blaming fellow commissioners and staff, including the sheriff, for part of Justice Concepts' performance.

And Commission Chairman Kelly Parks was off the mark in pointing a finger at the state's open meetings law, and specifically the prohibition of serial meetings among elected officials, as having "stifled" commissioners' communication and progress on the jail.

Transparency and open meetings build public trust, something wearing thin as this jail consultant saga wears on.

— For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

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