Grand Forks County Correctional Center Administrator Gary Gardner promised Tuesday he will meet Monday's deadline to train all essential personnel in order to comply with North Dakota correctional facility rules - and avoid the possible closing of the facility.
Even so, the county will ask for a deadline extension and more clarification about an order to train professionals and volunteers who provide services to the jail.
The latest non-compliance notice from the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, received last Thursday, surprised county commissioners, who had been assured earlier that day by Gardner than the jail was in full compliance.
In the first meeting of a new correctional center oversight committee Tuesday, chair Connie Triplett grilled Gardner on the discrepancies.
"I assumed we were in full compliance," Gardner said.
ADVERTISEMENT
"The next time you tell the county commission that we're in compliance, make sure you have it in writing," said Triplett, who also is a county commissioner.
Gardner said Tuesday that 36 of the facility's 45-member staff, including cooks and maintenance staff, have received the required training.
Six others were in training this week, Gardner said, and the remaining three - including Gardner and two other officials - would complete the latest round of training by Friday. Corrections staff are required to complete annual training.
The latest notice from the state said the county had failed to meet an Oct. 7 deadline to comply with three of 12 violations listed in a Sept. 18 compliance order. The department gave the county until Monday to correct the problems.
"In the absence of compliance with each condition set forth in the Order for Compliance, the ND DOCR will issue an Order for Closure," Leann Bertsch, director of the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in the letter.
Letter's timing
The letter was delivered at a special county commission meeting, just after the commission extended a yearlong job probation period for Gardner for an additional six months, to January 2008. The commission also suspended two scheduled raises for Gardner, a 2.7-percent increase Jan. 1, and a 1-percent anniversary raise.
Gardner, whose annual salary is about $67,900, was hired in March 1996.
ADVERTISEMENT
At last week's special meeting, the county commission also created the new correctional center oversight committee, with Triplett appointed as chair. Other members are Commissioner William Murphy, County Administrator Ed Nierode, States Attorney Peter Welte and Grand Forks Police Chief John Packett.
Gardner had been suspended without pay for 30 days and placed on one year of probation, effective July 16, after he misinformed the commission that federal contracts were in place to raise the payment the county would receive for housing federal prisoners. Contracts with the U.S. Marshal Service and federal prisons had not been signed at the time.
The mistake resulted in an income shortfall for the new $16 million facility, which opened in late September.
Gardner came under more scrutiny after the Aug. 25 suicide death of an inmate at the former county correctional center in downtown Grand Forks.
A probe after the suicide by the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation determined that jailers failed to see video images of the inmate tying a sock to the jail door in what turned out to be his suicide.
In a telephone call Tuesday to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the committee learned that the facility has complied with two of the orders - those dealing with written rules and procedures, and posting of the rules.
The committee also was told that the state would consider a written request for a deadline extension on training issues.
Questioning
ADVERTISEMENT
Gardner said he is questioning whether it is necessary to train professional and volunteers, such clergy and counselors, in all of the procedures required of correctional center staff.
Triplett said that question should have been answered several weeks ago, before the looming deadline.
In other action, the committee instructed Gardner to write letters to agencies that work with the correctional center, inviting them to list in writing any concerns they have about the correctional center, and to invite their representatives to a meeting to discuss issues.
"We want people to feel that they are partners in this facility," Triplett said.
