FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — The Fulton County Board of Commissioners pulled more than $2 million in funding for inmate wrist monitors at the county jail Wednesday.
The county had approved the purchase of 1,000 monitors – but only 15 inmates at the dangerously overcrowded Fulton County Jail are currently wearing them.
It was a contract designed to reduce the risks of inmates dying in the Fulton County Jail – which never got implemented the way county officials had hoped.
Sheriff Patrick "Pat" Labat purchased the electronic wrist monitors to gauge the whereabouts and vital signs of the jail’s most vulnerable inmates.
RELATED: Questions raised about Fulton County Jail $2M contract after failure to use wristband technology
Commissioners were angry that Labat asked them to approve an emergency contract in April to purchase the wrist monitors from an Alpharetta company called Talitrix. But Wednesday, Labat and his staff told them that jail overcrowding prevented contractors from safely wiring the jail to read the information from the monitors.
"The building continues to fall apart in many ways and that pushes out the timeline," sheriff's attorney Amelia Joyner told county commissioners Wednesday, during a contentious Q&A between her, Labat and commission members.
"I’ll be honest with you. I’ve heard enough. This is probably one of the worst contracts in my many years of public service," said chairman Robb Pitts, first elected to the Atlanta City Council in the 1980s.
The board of commissioners approved Pitts’ motion to rescind payment of the contract.
"This contract has been a mess from day one," Pitts said.
Talitrix executives have told 11Alive the company has contracts for jail wrist monitors across the southeast, and that they work effectively in the North Fulton jail annex. The company CEO says it could install the system in the Rice Street lockup by Christmas if security issues could be resolved for its workers.
After the vote Wednesday, Labat hinted he would look for ways to continue to fund at least a portion of the wrist monitoring program – even without county tax dollars because he says, it may save the lives of some inmates.