By Brian Wright | Casa Grande Dispatch
A contract between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Pinal County has hurt the county financially for years, but the first step to stop the bleeding took place Thursday.
In a meeting that included County Manager Fritz Behring, Pinal County Board of Supervisors Chairman Steve Miller, Sheriff Paul Babeu, Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Henry, U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Ann Kirkpatrick and Sheriff’s Office ICE Contract Coordinator Nancy Discher, ICE agreed to come to the negotiating table to discuss a more equitable contract for the county. Discher, Henry and Babeu flew to Washington, D.C., for the meeting, while Behring and Miller participated via conference call.
County officials will send a formal proposal to ICE, and a federal sequestration board ultimately will decide whether to sign off on a new agreement.
Behring said it would take several weeks for the county’s consultants to crunch the numbers and come up with a formal proposal.
Tae Johnson, assistant director of custody management for ICE, apologized that “it had to come to this point” and that ICE had to learn about what the contract was doing to the county “this way.”
“In all fairness, I’m sure every- one is looking at the bottom line and working within budget constraints,” he said.
Johnson said he understands the county wants to resolve the issue sooner rather than later.
“We look forward to having a successful negotiation and continuing the partnership,” he said.
After Behring raised con- cerns about the contract to the county’s Office of Internal Audit, that office conducted an audit of the ICE contract and found the county is losing about $2.5 million a year on the deal, which was originally signed in August 2006.
In the past five years, county Budget Director Leo Lew said the contract has cost the county about $12 million, and that doesn’t include about $3.5 million in annual debt service payments attributable to an expansion of the Pinal County jail.
An audit report, released in January, revealed the county is paid a per diem rate of $59.64 per detainee each day for ICE detainees held at the jail. Internal Audit concluded the county would have to receive a $75 per diem rate just to break even on operational costs.
Behring said after the call that when the county does come forward with a proposal to ICE, he wants it to be the right one.
