Commission Asking For More Funding,
Personnel to Keep its Effectiveness

With only three jail inspectors to help address the growing number of problems due to the increase in population throughout Texas, and 254 counties seeking that help, sometimes the inspection process can go more slowly than it should.

In fact, Adan Munoz, the recently chosen executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards who took the post in September, said that he is petitioning the Legislature to increase the TCJS budget and create more inspector positions.

Without more funding, he said he worries the jail certification process will move slower and slower, and problems will take longer to correct, meaning that the TCJS wouldn’t be fully serving its purpose.

The Legislature has reduced the TCJS budget by about 13 percent over the last 10 years. Munoz is asking that the budget be restored to its previous levels.

“The budget reduction is dramatically reducing our effectiveness,” Munoz said. “When you have noncompliance and surprise inspections and projects that you are trying to help counties with, and you only have three inspectors to do all the inspections, you just don’t have time to go everywhere. If we had the manpower to go cover these jails, to where where we can get to them quicker than we normally can, it’d be more effective and efficient.”

The number of jail inspectors has not gone up since the commission was first formed. At the time County magazine published this article, one of those three inspectors was on leave, making it even more difficult for the TCJS to follow through with inspection results and help jail officials solve their problems.

“What local officials do not realize, there are just hundreds of jail standards that we have to regulate,” Munoz said, adding that the agency tries to take a proactive approach to its job. “I think for the most part, most government officials look at the jail commission as a very proactive agency that they can work with. Our main role is to help keep the jail out of liability issues. Ninety percent of our function is to assist in that manner, rather than enforcement.”

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards is run by a board of nine Governor-appointed individuals from across the state. Members serve staggered six-year terms. Four of the nine members must be county officials (two sheriffs, one judge and one commissioner).

The purpose of the board and its staff is to establish and regulate a minimum set of jail standards and review all new jail design and construction plans. Contrary to its name, the TCJS does not consider itself to be an enforcement agency.

“What has impressed me the most about TCJS is that they spend so much effort in educating and working with counties,” said Taylor County Commissioner Stan Egger, who serves on the jail standards commission. “You’re not used to dealing with a regulatory authority that really their main goal is to get you in compliance, and not to catch you out of compliance.”

The TCJS offers several services to counties who request them, such as staffing and inmate work-release studies that address the best ways to increase staff levels and reduce overcrowding in an area. The staff also offers on-site consultations, jail population projections and facility needs analysis.

With more funding and staffing, Munoz added, the commission could focus more on providing those services than on just getting the inspections done.

Both of the inspectors not on leave said they believe the TCJS would benefit from having more support, and both said they were having trouble finding the time to re-inspect jails that have recently been cited for non-compliance.

“I think there is a lot more training that we could do if we just had a little relief,” jail inspector Dennis Cisneros said. Commission