The sheriff’s office is requesting about $300,000 for emergency repairs and about $900,000 for other needed fixes.
NEW ORLEANS — Back before the city council Tuesday afternoon, Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson says leaking pipes and plumbing issues have flooded the Orleans Parish Jail with problems.
“This whole thing has been building for a while. The issues have been present for years, they’ve worsened over time. That has to do with the aging system, deferred maintenance, and increased strain on our facility due to the capacity,” said Hutson.
The sheriff’s office is requesting approximately $300,000 for emergency repairs and around $900,000 for other necessary repairs.
“We have 16 active leaks. These leaks are causing damage to control panels that now we have to replace. So, it’s leading to other things that now have to be replaced,” said Chief Financial Officer at the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office Bianka Brown.
Brown says recent flooding even left about three feet of water on the jail’s third floor. Contractors point to subpar work during the jail’s construction ten years ago as a cause of the leaks.
“Obviously somebody didn’t inspect that, and the way that it stayed running with water, there was a clamp on the top and the bottom, and until there was an increase in pressure on this fitting, it didn’t leak,” said plumbing contractor Ernie Anderson.
Paying to fix it all became a point of contention Tuesday afternoon. The state legislative auditor believes the sheriff’s office already has the money needed. The sheriff’s office doesn’t agree.
“For right now in the interim there is funding to support that. So, we’re basically not going to do something that was planned to do, to probably support some other preventative maintenance that we’re experiencing, we’re going to shift the funding from there to redirect it toward this to pay,” said Brown.
As a historic escape hangs over the sheriff’s office, this request for money quickly led to a fiery exchange between Brown and Councilman JP Morrell about the lack of funds and the jail escape.
The council did not approve of any request for additional funding during the meeting. Council members do plan to see if they can go back and hold the plumbing contractor accountable for when the jail was built for the current plumbing problems.
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