Tulsa’s city auditor updated city councilors on an ongoing audit of county jail costs.
Cathy Criswell told councilors she had concerns about the jail fees set by the county.
"A lot of the estimates and so forth that are made are not necessarily done exactly — every time — the same way, so it could be that the cost varies just based on people's estimation and judgment for how things should be accounted for," Criswell said. "A second thing that I think is important is the jail at this point is not always tracking every cost that goes with a particular prisoner."
The audit should be done at the end of the month. Audit firm BKD is going over an assessment of 2013 costs done by another firm. Though the city wanted the audit done, the county put it out for bid.
Criswell said she wanted to be involved to understand the flow of money for jail operations.
"Who approves what and what the authority gets to see and what are the things that the authority should be paying closer attention to — I wanted to understand all that so I could communicate it," Criswell said. "But I was asked not to do that, and so I didn't."
Criswell went on to say she believes BKD will produce a legitimate report. BKD is looking at everything from contracts for jail services to capital spending in evaluating how a daily rate is calculated.
"We're going to have a process for calculating what jail costs are — what jail occupancy rates and the per diem — that is a consistent, repeatable, accurate process that we can rely on," Criswell said.
Mayor Dewey Bartlett said he will defer to Criswell’s judgment on the results of the audit.
