FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — The CEO of the security company whose employees walked off the job Thursday at the Fulton County Jail accused the sheriff of entering into a contract in "bad faith" and "with no intention of paying."
Strategic Security Corp. CEO Joseph Sordi said in a news conference that his company, which he says is owed $1 million, worked for months to resolve past-due payments before the walkouts.
Roughly 80 employees contracted with Strategic Security Corp., serving support roles at the Fulton County Jails, left their positions on Thursday.
"We were not in a position (to pay them)," Sheriff Pat Labat said Thursday in a news conference after the walkout. "We talk about the historic underfunding of the sheriff's office and that played a large part."
This episode is the latest flashpoint between the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Labat, and the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, which approves funding levels for the sheriff's office.
“Managing the jail is the Sheriff’s number one job. His number one job is managing the jail and that’s what he should be doing instead of blaming the Board every time there’s a problem at the jail," Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts said.
Tensions have been simmering between the two over the jail, which Labat contends needs to be replaced as a whole. The Board of Commissioners balked at the $2 billion replacement cost and opted for renovations. Pitts also says he expects more problems with contracts to arise soon.
“I guarantee you once this is resolved, there will be three, four or five more situations that come to our attention," Pitts added.
After Pitts ' interview, the head of Fulton County communications said this matter will be discussed at the next meeting on Wednesday.
Sordi, meanwhile, said his company was left in the lurch after agreeing to a contract in July 2023. According to his timeline, the sheriff's office had been behind on payments until February of this year. At that point, things got worse and the sheriff's office became "severely delinquent" on payments. Sordi said his company provided multiple extensions, deadlines and offers for reworking things before issuing a "drop dead" date of August 28.
That day came and went without payment, according to Sordi. Then, the workers left their jobs yesterday, August 29.
Sordi said the exact amount the company has been paid over the last year or more is confidential, but at no point has the sheriff's office paid the entire principal due.
According to Labat, his office is trying to rehire some of the workers, which he said he can do because there are different "buckets" of money he can draw from to fund operations -- one for contracts, and another that was "gleaned from vacancies."
Sordi accused Labat of negotiating the original contract in bad faith and asserted that the sheriff's attempts to rehire some of the officers on his own are evidence of that. The CEO said that when they negotiated the contract, the sheriff asked to remove a "non-solicitation" clause that would typically prevent the sheriff's office from trying to poach the security company's workers. According to Sordi, the company agreed to that to give employees a chance at career advancement if it happened to come up.
"He knowingly and willing entered into an agreement with no intentions of paying," Sordi said.
Labat framed things differently. The company claims it has kept paying all its employees, but Labat said in the news conference that he had heard from several employees who had not received their full paychecks in the most recent pay cycle.
"The last thing I wanted to do was have anybody be unemployed, be in a position where they are ultimately without a job. So, we have invited those individuals back in," Labat said.
On Thursday, Sordi said it was with a "heavy heart" that things came to this, leaving the possibility of legal action open.
Labat said Thursday he wanted to pay the contracting company and reach a resolution, but the two sides would not be able to reach one as quickly as the company had hoped.
Sordi asserted that Thursday was the first time they'd gotten responses from the sheriff after reaching out for months. He said he would "pray for everybody that's involved, and pray for the men and women that are in uniform providing the services and working diligently right now at the jail to hold down the situation until the bureaucratic red tape can be resolved."