Sheriff Johnny Moats is mad, pure and simple.
After a contentious presentation and facing questions from the Polk County Commission on Tuesday, April 2, 2024, the Sheriff told Polk Today he will no longer go before the board for meetings, but they are welcome to come sit and talk with him in his office anytime.
Moat additionally apologize for the language he used during the session (and in the interview,) but explained that he was so angry about the issues he’s faced since he took office as the Sheriff more than a decade ago that he can no longer contain his anger.
LISTEN: Sheriff Moats interview with Polk Today
Plumbing problems are just of the many that he faces at “the only facility in Polk County where people live,” Moats said. Rusting steel pods that were pre-fabricated in the 1990s make conditions unlivable in the old portion of the Polk County Jail, and he believes he’s found the man who can fix it.
Matt Denton called me a week before the Commissioner meeting, because they had been touring the jail. I had called them and I said I have a lof of problems. I want some commissioners to come and look because they don’t come around a lot.
He said County Adminstration, Commissioner Hal Floyd, Ray Carter and the plumbing contractor Timothy Tolbert took a tour of the jail together and how the “new jail” has been rusting out and plumbing problems in the “old jail.”
“We was getting the new company to come and give us an estimate for the worst pod we had,” Moats said. “… he said ‘oh yeah, we can fix this.’ And we got the bid, and it came back for 1-point something million dollars… I went to another county to look over the work they’d done before, and it was perfect.”
Moats explained the “pods” are made of pre-fabricated metal box that contains bunks, shower, toilet and sink that are connected together in rows, and then a second level on top. Moats said the top levels are fine, but the bottom levels are rusted out due to leaks in pipes that make the area uninhabitable for inmates at the jail.
The plumbing issues have been an ongoing problem since prior to when he was voted into the office of Sheriff 12 years ago, he said. Many of the pods weren’t in use because when the “new” jail was built, they moved the inmate population over from the old portion due to the variety of issues within the first facility. The problem became a real issue when COVID-19 began to spread and came into the jail as new people taken into custody brought the virus into the facility and required individuals to be quarantined.
He said despite his best efforts, he’s had no luck in getting plumbing contractors to fix the leaky plumbing of the past years.
He explained that when he met Tim Tolbert, owner of Triton Sewer & Drain, a plumbing contractor in Paulding County. Tolbert told Commissioners during the meeting that he has a daughter who works at the Sheriffs Office and a son-in-law who works for the Polk County Police, and Tolbert and Moats met through this connection at the Officer of the Year Awards ceremony in 2023.
Moats believes he found the man who can complete the work needed in the coming months and years to make the jail fully functional.
“So we started working,” he said. “But now, like a week ago they ask me to make a stuff a list of all the things that needed to be fixed, and the stuff that has been fixed and discuss with them what we need to go to next. That’s what I thought the meeting was about. Well, it turned into something different when I got there.”
He said he felt attacked by the County Commissioners over the issue of the jail’s plumbing problem and the invoice his office submitted for the work completed in recent weeks, that came in half over the estimated cost.
The root of the problem comes down to money. Moats said during the interview the County is not handing over enough funding to provide maintenance for the facility, and that funds generated through commissary sales to inmates (everything from potato chips to tooth brushes) and phone calls aren’t coming directly back to the jail either.
Later, the Sheriff’s Office provided three spreadsheets with funds collected from phone calls made from the jail and commissary sales along with bonds posted (a portion of the fees collected on bonds are supposed to also go to jail maintenance.) Due to time constraints with this coverage, additional investigation into these spreadsheets and funding measures will be required and will come in follow-up coverage.
His greatest criticism was targeted directly at Commissioner Ray Carter, who he believes is responsible for the direct questioning the Sheriff received over an estimate that was never received for plumbing work completed by Tolbert, and an invoice that went without documentation.
“This is truly what I believe: he is mad at me because I’m not supporting him. I’m supporting John Paschal. And I’m openly supporting him, I don’t have anyone running against me. I have to deal with these commissioners, and I don’t like what I see,” Moats said.
He also said that he believes the County Commission have voted on items that haven’t been necessary over the past years, like the purchase of property on Main Street in downtown Cedartown that was formerly a law office and is now used as the County’s administrative offices.
“I think this (the jail) would be top priority for anybody with common sense to fix this thing up before we get us a new fancy Commissioner’s room on Main Street that in my opinion they didn’t need,” Moats said. “And the money they spent? Talk about me wasting taxpayer’s money? They just spent $70,000 for a new system to do payroll. $70,000. When I was told they had one they spent $500,000 for and there was nothing wrong with it.”
County Administration and finance offices were previously housed in the West Avenue building where the Tax Commissioner and Board of Elections remains, along with the Planning and Zoning department.
Moats provided copies of this estimate and invoice to Polk Today, which he said he submitted as far back as February.
Here are pictures of those invoices provided by Sheriff Moats:
Moats said after the meeting Tuesday, he went back to find the invoices to ensure he was correct.
Polk Today reached out to County Manager Matt Denton about the invoice prior to meeting with Sheriff Moats.
He provided the following statement about the matter by e-mail after the interview with Sheriff Moats concluded:
“The work estimate for plumbing work referenced by the Sheriff was submitted by the Sheriff’s Office as part of their FY2025 proposed budged as an attachment within the County’s Financial Software. Their proposed FY2025 Budget was not yet reviewed by the Finance Department therefore we were not aware of it until the Sheriff brought it to our attention. I did find the email referenced by the Sheriff that he sent to me this past Wednesday afternoon.” – Matt Denton, Friday, April 5, 2024 4:20 PM
Moats said in the aftermath of the meeting, he also made open records requests into areas of county business he believes might have been conducted wrongly.
“I’ve done a bunch of open records requests this week. I’ve heard a lot of things are not on the up-and-up, and I’m going to verify it,” he said. “And if I verify that something that has been done that is a little shady, you’ll be the first to know.”
The whole interview was just over 40 minutes in length, and beyond portions that were off-the-record statements or one hearsay statement that could not be confirmed after, Polk Today makes this audio available for all to hear for themselves.
Many questions remain unanswered, and additional open records requests, interviews and information will be gathered in the coming days over the maintenance issues at the Polk County Jail.
