Does Tarrant Co. want to privatize jail functions? Residents decry ‘hidden’ agenda item
The item was placed at the end of a batch of permissions to take bids for various services in the county such as annual contracts for defibrillators in county facilities and translation and interpretation services. The last item on the list: a request for proposals, or RFP, for an annual contract for jail management services.
Tarrant County residents who spoke during public comments at the county commissioners court meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 15, said the item was purposely “hidden” and ambiguously written so as not to attract attention to the commissioners’ intent to privatize services at the county jail.
The item was removed from the agenda before residents spoke and before a vote was held on the other four bid permissions, but county residents still questioned the county’s and the Sheriff’s Office’s intent to take bids from private companies on jail services. No reason was given for why the item was removed.
“Hidden in this innocuous sounding agenda item is a major change to the sheriff’s chief job responsibility managing the Tarrant County jail,” said Fort Wort resident Reed Bilz. “He is asking permission to relinquish this responsibility and seek bids for turning the job over to a private entity.”
Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Robbie Hoy said in an emailed statement, “That item was pulled from the agenda, and no information about the RFP is available at this time.”
The purpose of the contract, according to commissioners court documentation, “is to provide jail management services for various facilities. The contract will have a mix of revenue and expenses dependent on the population mix of the inmates and external vendor/contractor inmates.”
Fort Worth resident Julie Griffin called for clarification on several questions that arise from the term “jail services,” including the nature of the services to be provided and in which jail facilities, as well as time, cost and accountability issues.
“Is this some kind of admission that our jail is broken, and only some private outfit can accomplish the job?” she asked.
She and others pointed out that managing county jails is one of a sheriff’s main duties, as required by Texas law.
Jackee Cox, also of Fort Worth, said the ambiguous language and inclusion of the item among other bid permissions violates the Texas Open Meetings Act.
“It’s just sad how inept that posting is, and it doesn’t comply with the Open Meetings Act,” she said, referring to the agenda item.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office of Open Government did not immediately return a call requesting clarification on whether the item may have violated the Open Meetings Act.
But the posting may have been insufficient to meet requirements under the Open Meetings Act based on the level of public interest of the subject matter, according to Joe Larsen, an attorney with the Freedom of Information Act Foundation of Texas. The foundation has a hotline to connect citizens with lawyers to get answers to questions about the Public Information Act and the Open Meetings Act.
Larsen pointed to a case that made it to the Texas Supreme Court, in which the Austin Independent School District was found to not have given sufficient information about the appointment of a new superintendent. Cited heavily in the Open Meetings Act Handbook, the case found that the school district listed the appointment under general descriptors such as “litigation” and “personnel” for an executive session.
The Texas Supreme Court, however, found that the appointment of a new superintendent was of more interest to the public than regular personnel matters and that the district should have been more explicit in its description of the item on its meeting agenda.
“The greater the legitimate public interest, the more specific the posting needs to be,” Larsen said. “I think it was an insufficient posting, given the level of legitimate public interest here, and it does look like they were trying to conceal from the public.”
This story was originally published October 15, 2024 at 3:53 PM.
