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Former sheriff tells commissioners ICE contract reimbursed costs, cites staffing and litigation concerns
Summary
Former Sheriff Jim Tracy told the Utah County Board that the county’s prior ICE contract reimbursed actual costs and did not produce excess revenue; he described heavy overtime and morale problems among jail staff, said federal CRCL oversight triggered voluminous records demands and litigation risk, disputed a $2.43 million ‘unaccounted’ claim, and urged against reopening the contract while supporting a county tax increase.
Former Sheriff Jim Tracy addressed the Utah County Board of County Commissioners during public comment to clarify why the county’s former contract to house Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees did not produce excess revenue and why, he said, reopening such a contract would be problematic.
Tracy said the ICE contract used a federal reimbursement formula that required the county to be reimbursed for actual costs. "That contract allowed us to be reimbursed for actual cost," he said, adding that "if we had 4,500,000.0 in revenue coming in, we had 4,500,000.0 in expenditures going out." He said the only net benefit was a small stipend for occupied square footage that helped offset the jail bond.
Tracy listed three reasons the county ended the contract: (1) chronic understaffing that forced the program to run on overtime rather than hiring full-time employees, producing mandatory overtime and employee health and morale issues; (2) litigation risk after visits by the Community Relations and Civil Liberties (CRCL) office, which delivered notices and extensive records requests that county staff estimated could total roughly 60,000 pages; and (3) accounting complexity—Tracy disputed a recently cited figure that $2,430,000 was unaccounted for, saying no bonus or stipend paid to the sheriff’s office existed and that billing and collections flowed through the county auditor and county attorney, not independent sheriff accounts.
In a back-and-forth with commissioners, Tracy reiterated that his numbers reflected roughly $4.5 million in contract revenue and about $2.4 million in personnel-related expenses tied to administering the program, and he acknowledged that some ongoing costs (food, utilities, clothing) were separate from personnel costs. Commissioners asked about timing; Tracy and others placed the contract’s termination around 2016–2017, with a transition period afterward.
Tracy said that toward the end of the contract ICE began offering higher per-diem payments, but he warned those rates were politically contingent and could change quickly. "I would not recommend bringing that back in for those reasons that I stated," he said. He also voiced support for the county tax increase under consideration: "I also just since we're on the record, do support that tax increase coming. It's long overdue. The county needs those funds..."
The commission did not take action during public comment. Following Tracy’s remarks the board moved to its scheduled closed meetings.
