Tarrant County law enforcement center comes under fire as jail continues to show issues
Tarrant County commissioners are butting heads over a proposed law enforcement training academy.
The building came up during Tuesday’s commissioners meeting as county leaders received a presentation on capital improvement projects for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
A proposed 60,900-square-foot center will cost more than $35.2 million to build and another $1.9 million to furnish. The target budget is $45 million, according to facilities management director Michael Amador. It would be paid for with money from the American Rescue Plan Act. A location has not been determined.
Commissioner Manny Ramirez, a former Fort Worth police union president and a facility supporter, wondered if there was a more fiscally responsible way to build the center. He said the county would be paying a large amount of money for resources it already had but it would be putting them in a prettier building.
But Democratic commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roy Brooks had even bigger concerns.
While GOP leaders and members of the sheriff’s office have said the new training center will increase recruitment and retention efforts, Simmons and Brooks said there was no proof that would happen.
“We could try to throw money at retention and recruitment for the SO, but the money we keep throwing at it doesn’t improve the situation,” Brooks said.
Simmons said she would like to see the county get out of its agreement to house inmates in Garza County and reduce its jail population before it moves forward with creating a center. Both Democrats said they supported training for law enforcement.
“We are not doing something right here, and to keep relying on the same leadership in that sheriff’s office to fix it, just repeating the same old mistakes,” Simmons said.
Ramirez said the jail population, employee compensation, and jail staffing and training issues were being unfairly conflated, and that having a training center will be the first time the county has invested in sheriff’s office education and training.
The current training academy is housed in a tight space at the Resource Connection complex in a building that dates to the 1970s.
Brooks told the court that just because he and Simmons had questions does not mean they do not support having well-trained law enforcement.
Sheriff Bill Waybourn said a state-of-the-art training center will attract state-of-the-art people.
“I think we got to do something,” Waybourn he told the Star-Telegram. “And I think there’s a lot of good ideas swirling. But I do think it benefits us in the long run. It’s needed.”
County commissioners also unanimously allocated $215,300 from the American Rescue Plan for a temporary position that would work with the sheriff, command staff and county administrative staff on a wide range of duties.
Those duties include making recommendations on filling vacancies, identifying potential process improvements, making branding recommendations, creating programs for encouraging advancement within the department, and devising and helping execute a comprehensive plan to address and resolve identified areas of concern.
Waybourn said the sheriff’s office has had similar positions before and that whoever held it would likely not become permanent.
This story was originally published July 18, 2023 at 3:42 PM.
