Board Must Set Terms for Third Party Jail Audit

Milwaukee County Jail. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Milwaukee County will likely soon begin looking for a third party to audit the operations and policies of its jail.

The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors approved, and funded, a third-party audit as part of the 2024 Milwaukee County Budget. The county’s internal auditing department has recently completed an outline of what the new third-party audit will need to accomplish. The county board will review and vote on these requirements this month.

A spate of in-custody deaths at the facility, with most attributed to suicide, is what motivated policymakers to seek an audit.

The board made a formal request of the Milwaukee County Sheriff‘s Office (MCSO) for detailed information on policies and practices at the jail in early 2023. It received the report just before the start of the 2024 budget process.

The MCSO identified low staffing and overcrowding at the facility as the number one challenge to safety in the jail. The board increased correctional office pay to $30 an hour in the 2024 budget in an attempt to stabilize staffing and to come within arms reach of the $33 an hour starting pay that the state began providing to corrections officers in its prisons this year

Supervisors allocated $250,000 in the budget for the audit. If the bids from third-party auditors come in higher, the board will have to find additional funding for the project. The MCSO report, which was not a formal audit, took nearly all year to be compiled and presented to the board. It’s unlikely that the audit will be completed and reported to the board by the end of 2024.

The goal of the audit is straightforward: to develop policy recommendations that will lead to fewer in-custody deaths at the jail. Though, it will be a complex undertaking. The right auditors will need a knowledge of the local, state and federal legal framework under which the facility operates, as well as the policies and practices that are considered best for facilities like county jails, according to a report from the Audit Services Division of the Office of the Comptroller.

The state Department of Corrections and court-appointed monitors already monitor the jail’s healthcare and population. The latter is the result of a settlement agreement for a 1996 lawsuit over constitutional violations and unsafe living conditions, which also requires access to the facility by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The MCSO has not expressed any opposition to the audit, and even urged the board to “act quickly” to effectuate it. “The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office has cooperated with other reviews and will cooperate with this audit,” Sheriff Denita Ball said.

The budget amendment requesting the jail audit was sponsored by Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson, and received co-sponsorship from nearly two-thirds of the board.