By Brian Wright
Casa Grande Dispatch
Pinal County Board of Supervisors Chairman Steve Miller signaled his intent at a Wednesday meeting of the Western Pinal Republican Club to stand between Sheriff Paul Babeu and County Manager Fritz Behring, saying Babeu’s accusations that Behring tampered with a recent audit are inaccurate.
The meeting, held at Eva’s Fine Mexican Food in Casa Grande, had about 25 attendees, and Miller told them to take Babeu’s comments “with a grain of salt.”
At a Republican precinct committee meeting in Florence last week, Babeu claimed results of the audit — which focused on the county’s jail contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency — were distorted by Behring.
Babeu said an audit report from Behring failed to include $2 million in jail revenues that were in the original report from the Office of Internal Audit.
“There’s nearly $2 million in annual revenue that was taken out that the auditor had put in there. That’s a problem, folks,” Babeu said. “This audit is not accurate.”
Babeu agreed the county was getting a raw deal with its ICE contract, which pays a per diem of just $59.61 per detainee, when the audit showed the county should charge closer to $75 per prisoner per day.
“I get upset when talking about this because there’s a lot of issues that have gone on over the past few years with this county manager — he’s been here two years,” the sheriff said.
Miller said Babeu’s characterization of the audit numbers is “not true.”
“There was a $2 million pass-through that was discussed by an audit committee, the Sheriff’s Office and Fritz’s office. They left it in, (but) it doesn’t translate to a $2 million profit,” Miller said. “It was clear that it had very little relevance to the overall bottom line of the contract anyway.”
Miller said Behring did not have the audit changed and added the county manager just gives an opinion to the audit committee. The audit committee isn’t obligated to include his input in its report. He said the audit information presented to the PCSO was not altered in any way from the original report.
County Communications Director Heather Murphy confirmed the audit report given to the Sheriff’s Office contained the exact same information as included in the original report.
The audit, which evaluated the contract with ICE and not the Pinal County Adult Detention facility, uncovered losses of $2 million to $3 million annually in the last five years, about $12 million total since the contract was signed, County Budget Director Leo Lew told the Maricopa Monitor earlier.
Lew said the $12 million represents a direct hit to the county’s general fund and doesn’t include the annual debt service of $3.5 million the county owes for the jail expansion.
Miller said he thinks Babeu is attempting to sully Behring’s name with accusations because he wants Behring out as county manager. Miller said it’s the Board of Supervisors’ responsibility to hire and fire the county manager and monitor his or her results, not the sheriff’s.
“I’m not interested in what the sheriff’s opinion is of Fritz,” he said.
In a Thursday statement released by sheriff’s spokesman Tim Gaffney, Babeu agreed the Board of Supervisors can hire and fire whoever it wants. And, he added, “The county manager does not work for the sheriff.” However, Gaffney said Babeu will send a letter to the supervisors next week that details “past and current issues” the Sheriff’s Office has with Behring.
As for Miller, he says Behring’s performance as the county manager has been exemplary.
“Look at how much he has cut out of the county budget, and we’re getting down to where we can start bringing the property tax down because of his management skills — they’re absolutely excellent management skills,” he said. “You don’t find these guys (on) every corner. This is a top-notch county manager.”
Miller also credited Behring for cleaning up some of the county’s “old guard backroom deals” since he was hired in November 2010.
In a phone interview Thursday, Behring said the $2 million in revenues Babeu referenced were irrelevant because the audit was of the ICE contract, not the jail.
Therefore, Behring said revenues and expenses related to the jail have nothing to do with the audit of the contract with ICE.
“The audit standards specifically say an audit should be relative to the issues at hand,” he said. Babeu “said the numbers were changed, between the draft and the final (report), and that ain’t true. That’s a lie.”
Behring said while the board always signs a final contract and deserves blame for the ICE contract, the Sheriff’s Office is not without blame, because it administers the contract after it’s signed.
The Sheriff’s Office “loves to sit there and say the board signs the contract, so it’s not our responsibility. That’s malarkey,” he said.
Behring said Babeu is comparing apples to oranges when talking about jail revenues and the audit of the ICE contract and added it’s an example of how Babeu confuses the issue when presenting information to the public.
“It had nothing to do with the ICE contract, so what he said was not true. But he spins this stuff, and so many people fall for this stuff, it’s unbelievable,” Behring said.
Behring also placed blame on his predecessor, former County Manager Terry Doolittle, for never requesting an audit of the contract and assuming it was paying for itself, when it was actually costing the county millions of dollars that have come out of taxpayers’ pockets.
“My predecessor should have known about it, and if he did, he should have told somebody about it,” Behring said.
“And the people who were administering this contract should have known something about this.”
District 1 Supervisor Pete Rios, the board’s lone Democrat and the only current supervisor who was on the board when Behring was hired, said Behring has done a good job as county manager. He said Behring has been “honest” and “up front” and doesn’t have any reason to not report facts accurately.
Rios said despite disagreements with Behring during his tenure, he would give Behring an “A” rating as a county manager and said Behring got the county through some tough financial times that have put the county in a position of fiscal strength.
Behring’s “done a lot to ensure that Pinal County is in the economically viable place that we’re in right now,” Rios said. “I stand behind the county manager.”
Behring’s reputation and results are that of a fiscal conservative, but Rios said Babeu, a Republican, doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the county manager despite that shared ideology. He said Babeu will be back in front of the board asking the supervisors for more money within a matter of weeks.
“The term fiscally conservative is relative to who is speaking,” Rios said.
“When Fritz Behring is speaking about being a fiscal conservative, he truly is … I think (Babeu) applies the definition differently to his department than other departments.”
