Commissioners terminate consultant contract

April 28--After paying nearly half of the contract, Ector County commissioners on Monday terminated a consultant because of poor reception to a report he presented on April 16, seven months after he started.

Wayne Gondeck, a San Antonio-based architect, was hired in September to evaluate jail and justice system processes in an attempt to lessen jail population stresses.

Ector County Judge Susan Redford recommended commissioners terminate his contract and refuse to authorize any more payments, after Gondeck has already been paid about $47,000.

Redford said hiring a consultant was done at the request of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, which listed the county jail as being noncompliant in June because of staffing levels and overcrowding. The county opted to hire Gondeck to avoid further sanctions from the TCJS such as caps imposed on the number of inmates.

But when addressing the commissioners, Redford said she couldn't justify paying Gondeck anymore and that doing so would be "wasting taxpayer dollars."

Gondeck presented a 50-page report on April 16 to a group of elected and appointed officials. The report mostly stated job descriptions and Ector County facts, with no concrete solution for the county to fix the problem that was previously identified as slow pen pack processing.

Pen packs are the documents produced through the course of a criminal trial needed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to accept a person into the prison, including the judgment of conviction.

"There was no real process review, there was no real data," Redford said of the report. "Honestly, it just read like a book report."

After the April 16 meeting, Gondeck said he was under the impression that he was not to step on any elected officials' toes, and instead opted for the vague report to not assign blame. Gondeck said the actual hitch in the process is in the district clerk's office, where the pen packs sit for long periods of time.

But at the commissioners' court meeting Monday, Redford said several of the officials on the panel Gondeck presented to have lost faith in his ability to carry out the analysis.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Greg Simmons asked Redford if it was a product of Gondeck not being able to do the job or of the officials not wanting to listen, as there had been previous documented resistance to Gondeck's analysis.

Both District Attorney Bobby Bland and County Attorney Scott Layh said Gondeck only met with them once, with no follow up, and Bland said Gondeck made a number of clerical errors in his report as well as factual ones.

Commissioners voted to terminate the contract with the promise from Redford that she would conduct an internal investigation over the summer to complete the task they hired Gondeck to do.

Gondeck did not return a message for comment.

Commissioners also:

--Approved a resolution to the Airport Association and Schlemeyer Field recognizing May 3 as "Wings and Wheels Day."

--Approved the request that funds received from rebates on county purchases be transferred to the employee enrichment fund for upcoming projects.

--Tabled action on a county mission statement contest.

--Appointed Conrad Aguirre to serve on the Ector County Historical Commission.

--Approved the application for accreditation for the Ector County Library to the State Library System.

--Tabled a request for authorization to maintain and continue using the Gardendale Arena from the Ector 4-H Club.

--Approved the surplus and sale by auction of assets and other items.

--Approved the proposed specifications to specific insurance items.

--Approved an extension of audit services with Johnson Miller CPAs for an additional four years.

--Approved the subscription plan amendment with LexisNexis.

--Approved the renewal of the food services agreements with ABL Management Inc. for the Ector County Elderly Nutrition Program and the detention center.

--Approved an amendment to the master services agreement with Securus Technologies for inmate telephone service.

--Approved the termite retreatment agreement with Orkin for the Ector County Library.

--Approved the transition of the county's Odyssey system to software as a service. Simmons voted against the item.

--Approved overtime for Information Technology from April 15 through the end of the fiscal year in lieu of comp time due to staffing shortage in order to support specific high-priority projects.

--Approved a request from the city of Odessa to acquire the county's interest in .619 acres of land along the alley at 40th Street and Pleasant Street and retain property for public use.

--Approved the approval of Haley subdivision in Crane and Ector counties.

--Approved abandoning any remaining alley in block 1 of Odessa Industrial Park and block 15 in Airway Acres.

--Approved a $5,100 line-item transfer to airport building materials from unreserved fund balance.

--Approved the request to add SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc. as a broker/dealer for county investments.

--Approved the request to add First Empire Securities as a broker/dealer for county investments.

--Received the Ector County investment report for the quarter ending March 31.

--Approved the accounts payable fund requirements report for April 28, and reviewed county financial statements and reports.

​Contact Jon Vanderlaan on twitter at @OAcourts, on Facebook at OA Jon Vanderlaan or call 432-333-7763.

___

(c)2014 the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas)

Visit the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas) at www.oaoa.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services