Tempers flared again at Tuesday’s Franklin
County Commission meeting during a discussion over whether the county should seek
bids for local probation services.
Local misdemeanor probation
services are handled by a company called Florida Probation Services – they were
hired for the job in 2011.
They collect payments from people
on probation and monitor community service hours.
Their contract with the county ends
in March, and clerk of the Court Marcia Johnson said the contract could be
renewed for another three years or the county could give the company 90 days
notice that it is seeking a replacement.
Commissioner Noah Lockley made a
motion to go out for bids from other companies, but commissioner Pinki Jackel argued
that the because of an ongoing criminal case that the county should not seek new
bids at this time because it looks like the county is saying it doesn’t have
faith in Florida Probation Services.
A previous employee of the
company, Jennifer Brown, was arrested in 2013 and is currently facing felony charges, including grand theft,
for pocketing possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in probation payments.
The discussion came very close to
accusing the clerk’s office of either malfeasance or ignorance for not catching
the thefts earlier – but Mrs. Johnson pointed out that she reported the thefts as
soon as she became aware of them.
She added that the ongoing
criminal case has nothing to do with the county’s contract with Florida
Probation Services and said it’s up to the county commission whether it wants
to seek bids from other providers or not.
She did point out that a county
commission meeting is not the right place to discuss an ongoing criminal case especially
since her office is considered a victim since it was the hardest hit by the
thefts.
Miss Jackel said this is not a “normal,
run-of the-mill contract process” – adding that there is a lot of controversy around
this situation.
In the end, the commission decided
to table the issue for a few weeks to give the county attorney time to look at
the contract more closely.
They will readdress the contract
question when they meet again in January.
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