A Texas attorney general’s opinion that a county sheriff is not authorized to accept an “administrative fee” from a private organization has no bearing on McLennan County Sheriff Larry Lynch, who receives a $12,000 annual salary supplement for monitoring the county’s privately run jails, county officials say.

The opinion issued by Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office Wednesday was prompted by a question from state Rep. Yvonne Davis, D-Dallas, chairwoman of the House Committee on Urban Affairs.

While the request, submitted in September 2008, did not specifically mention contracts between any county or sheriff, the letter was prompted by a high-profile state law enforcement union’s dispute with McLennan County.

The union, the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, had battled the county as officials deliberated whether to renew its contract with Community Education Centers (formerly CiviGenics) to operate the county’s downtown jail and to contract with CEC to operate a new jail on State Highway 6.

McLennan County Judge Jim Lewis and McLennan County District Attorney John Segrest said the opinion will not affect operations here because the salary supplement Lynch is paid comes from the county, not CEC.

Segrest said “this opinion has no bearing whatsoever on the situation in McLennan County,” based on his knowledge of the CEC contract and from his discussions with county officials, including county auditor Steve Moore and county attorney Mike Dixon.

“The private contractor does not pay the county anything,” Segrest said. “The county pays them. So clearly, there is no administrative fee paid by the private contractor who runs the jail.

“It appears to me that the broad opinion was based on a question designed to get a certain answer and it comes from the same people who put up the billboards that said Waco is the murder capital of the world.”

Group’s protests

Segrest was referring to officials from CLEAT. The group asked for the opinion while organizing protests to McLennan County privatizing its jail system.

CLEAT also had been involved in putting up billboards on Interstate 35 highlighting Waco’s crime rate.

The move came amid local police association officials’ frustration with the city about pay, staffing and other issues.

CEC contracts with the county to operate jails here, and the county contracts with the federal government and other counties to house their prisoners.

The $12,000 supplement the county pays Lynch is for additional administrative and monitoring duties associated with the private jails, Lewis and Segrest said.

A private jail company cannot operate in a county without the authorization of the county sheriff. That $12,000 annual fee is on top of Lynch’s annual salary of $92,881.

The supplement has been in place since the late Jack Harwell was sheriff and the county first leased the downtown jail on Columbus Avenue to CiviGenics in 1999.

Charley Wilkison, political and legislative director for CLEAT, challenged Lynch, based on the AG’s opinion, to write a check today and give the money back to the private contractor.

That would prove he is an “honorable man and a man of integrity,” Wilkison said.

Lynch did not return phone messages left at his office or on his cell phone Wednesday or Thursday.

Dixon, the county’s attorney, said CLEAT continues to play fast and loose with the facts.

“I fail to see why the sheriff would need to send a check to CEC when he has never received any money from or on behalf of CEC,” Dixon said.

Wilkison said the supplement, which is common in all counties with private jails operating in them, “just never passed the smell test.”

‘Fish bait’

“This opinion is a great victory for the regular people of Texas, and the reason is that this goes to the cornerstone, to the fish bait, that private jail companies use to get into a community and get their hooks into the taxpayers and get their hands into their pockets,” Wilkison said.

Wilkison said the opinion makes it clear that the salary supplement is not proper and should stop.

Lewis said he doesn’t think the AG’s opinion applies to McLennan County because it involves a question about an “administrative fee” that is paid based on the number of prisoners in jail.

“The sheriff is paid a salary supplement,” Lewis said. “There is a difference. He is paid the same salary supplement every year.

“It is not a fee based on jail population. This is no secret. We post our salaries once a year and it is very clear that it is a supplement approved by the commissioners court,” Lewis said.

Dixon agreed.

He said the AG’s opinion request was based on erroneous information.

“Instead of requesting an opinion pertaining to actual facts of which this group was well aware,” Dixon said, “the request was based on fictitious assertions that have been repeatedly alleged by the group, the goal being to use the resulting opinion to further assail the sheriff, even though the facts underlying the opinion would bear no relationship to the situation in McLennan County.”

Ken Witt, president of the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office Association and a CLEAT member, said whatever the county calls the sheriff’s pay bump, it is wrong.

“Whether you call it a fee or a supplement, it amounts to word games by Judge Jim Lewis,” Witt said. “It is clear that the sheriff is funneled money from CEC.

“If not directly, indirectly through the commissioners court. It doesn’t matter how the sheriff receives his piece of the private pie.”

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

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