FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Fulton County commissioners rebuked the sheriff on Wednesday for failing to use technology the county purchased to monitor the vital signs of inmates at the jail.
Fulton County authorized the purchase of 1,000 monitors from an Alpharetta company called Talitrix. On Wednesday, commissioners asked – where did the money go?
Earlier this year, Fulton County commissioners agreed to spend more than $2 million on a potential solution touted as a next-generation inmate wrist monitor. It would track locations in addition to their vital signs.
Commissioner Bob Ellis said the that solution, expected by July, hasn't come to fruition.
"Right now we have non-performance, clear non-performance of the contractor at this point in time," said Ellis during a county commission meeting Wednesday. "That is indisputable based on the information that was provided."
Last month, Talitrix told 11Alive’s Bobeth Yates that staffing concerns and conditions at the jail had slowed the deployment of the monitoring system. Instead of 1,000 monitors, Ellis said the sheriff bought only five monitors – yet spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the contract.
"We had five people die in the jail – five people, post-July. These specific devices would presumably have been worn by those very individuals," Ellis said.
This comes at a time when Sheriff Patrick Labat is trying to cajole the county into spending $2 billion on a new jail to replace the Rice Street facility. Now, commissioners are questioning how taxpayers can expect them to spend that kind of money when they say there’s been no accountability for the money spent on the Talitrix monitors.
"I thought with these monitors that the mental health patients that were put in solitary could at least be monitored," Commissioner Bridget Thorne said.
"You need to come here and have a conversation with the commissioners," said Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman, in a comment directed at Sheriff Labat, who did not attend the meeting.
Last month, Talitrix said it expected to deliver all 1,000 monitors and said the jail has already successfully deployed a handful of monitors on inmates.
Sheriff Labat’s office hasn’t responded to our request for comment.