Orleans Parish Sheriff Office finances are disastrous

There’s been no shortage of drama at the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office since May 16th, when 10 inmates escaped from the Orleans Parish Justice Center.

But the drama didn’t end with the escape. Details continued coming to light when New Orleans City Council members met with OPSO to discuss how the poor state of the facility and lapses in oversight led to the jail break.

Reports continue to emerge, showing how the conditions in the jail remain dire and are getting worse by the day. Now, severe plumbing issues have led to flooding, and inmates are reporting that the water is undrinkable.

Again, Sheriff Susan Hutson and her staff find themselves amid meetings with the New Orleans City Council to request funding from the city to address the plumbing emergency.

These meetings are not going well.

City Councilmember JP Morrell took to social media, where he described the second of two meetings between OPSO and the council as “An unmitigated trainwreck… I have never seen a person show up to a meeting less prepared, with less answers, and with less information than this meeting.”

“The sheriff comes up and says, ‘I need millions of dollars for these longstanding emerging plumbing issues. I need money. Give me all the money,” Morrell says. “Up until the day of that meeting, we had not received one estimate, one invoice, one piece of paper telling us how much this cost.”

Another issue Morrell highlights is how OPSO already sits on a large reserve fund but refuses to use it for emergency repairs, which would cost between $300,000 and $400,000.

“The sheriff has a whole bunch of money she doesn’t want to spend,” Morrell states. “Anything from 8-17 million in her bank accounts that she can spend. What infuriated the council was that she was desperate for us to spend your money, to defund NORD and your streets, and she was going to ‘pay us back’ after she did it.”

When asked why OPSO couldn’t use existing funds, Morrell says OPSO couldn’t offer a clear answer.

“I know this sheriff inherited a hot mess,” Morrell says. “But let me be really clear: The sheriff just passed a $13-million millage…There’s been no effort to take any of the cash she has on hand or to pledge the money she just got from votes to fix any of the problems….What was the purpose of that millage? Why have a reserve and not deal with your own emergencies? Where is all this money going?”

During the second meeting, the council also interviewed Legislative Auditor Michael J. Waguespack. According to Morrell, Waguespack, in contrast to OPSO, could give a clear answer.

“I called him on purpose,” Morrell says. “I have serious concerns that her CFO cannot read budgets or do math. It became increasingly obvious to me that I needed an independent third party to tell me how much money was there.”

Waguespack’s response was far more concise. The Facebook video presents a clip of Waguespack offering his opinion on whether OPSO has enough cash on hand to fix emergency plumbing issues.

“In my opinion, it’s available,” Waguespack says. “Granted, they’re not going to spend this tomorrow. It’ll take a while to get it invoiced and paid out…I think they have the cash flow. Whether it’s 20 million, 15 million, or 10 million, there’s adequate cash flow to finance these repairs.”

Morrell comments on some of the more peculiar details of the financial management at OPSO, including the fact that the sheriff has “44 checking accounts.”

“Things increasingly went off the rails in this crazy-ass meeting because it’s increasingly apparent that the sheriff’s office has books that are cooked,” Morrell says. “I asked the follow-up question, ‘That’s active accounts, right?’ And the legislative auditor said there are additional accounts that are closed with money in them.”

“The CFO had the audacity to say that if we had just given them the money they were demanding earlier, it was our fault they had fled the jail,” Morrell says.

In a recorded exchange (documented in Morrell’s Facebook video), OPSO’s CFO, Bianca Brown, is shown saying, “Maybe if we were about to support and pay deputies more money or have additional deputies, we wouldn’t have had that type of issue.”

“This moment as a New Orleanian really triggered me,” Morrell continues. “We are spending anywhere from $200-250 thousand per week to catch the remaining inmates who fled the sheriff’s prison…“We’re literally funding the go***mn manhunt to help you catch the people.”

The meeting also focused on OPSOs’ management of the jail facility, both from an administrative and record-keeping standpoint.

Morrell states, “That building is less than ten years old. The fact that it’s in such disrepair is not because of inherent design flaws; it’s because it’s not maintained, and the sheriff does not have control of the facility.”

Concerning plumbing, Morrell says, “A huge problem that I really struggle with was when we found out the pipes were damaged and the sheriff had not, on their own, clearly identified who installed the pipes incorrectly.”

The council member then shows clips from the meeting where Sheriff Hutson admits to not knowing who the plumber was who installed the initial pipes. Morrell goes on to say that the failure to use BRASS (New Orleans’ procurement and finance system for managing contractors and suppliers) might cause delays, which could cost the department their ability to hold the initial contractor accountable for doing a poor job on the facility’s plumbing.

“In the state of Louisiana, there’s a ten-year statute of limitations for pipe work done behind brick walls,” Morell begins. “This prison is almost ten years old. There’s a real possibility that had the sheriff’s office been in BRASS and been able to clearly identify the plumbing company that had done the original work, had they been notified, and had a lawsuit been filed, we would have an action against the group that did the original installation.”

“But because that place it a shit show,” Morrell continues. “There’s a possiblity that by the time they sort through their busted ass records, they can miss the window to sue them. So we can have pipes that are erroneously installed and not have the ability to recover that money.”