Costa Mesa will hire its own custody officers, after contract failure nearly closed jail

Rather than close the city jail due to a lack of staffing, Costa Mesa officials have agreed to fund 11 full-time custody officer positions, a move that will incur initial and long-term costs but ensure an essential city service continues.

City Council members Tuesday unanimously voted to approve the hiring of new personnel, after a long-standing contract with a third-party company to provide basic jail services was terminated in May due to a “mass resignation” that left only two officers on the job.

The annual cost for the new hires is estimated at $1.12 million — or $175,215 beyond what the city had already agreed to pay contractor Allied Universal in the current budget cycle. The difference will be allocated from the city’s general fund.

“This really is an issue less about a contract versus non-contract,” Costa Mesa Police Chief Ron Lawrence told the City Council Tuesday. “It’s more of an issue of do we have a jail, or do we not have a jail?”

Between January and July, the department booked some 2,900 arrestees into the city jail, averaging 414 bookings per month. That activity nearly came crashing to a halt in March, when several Allied Universal employees quit, claiming in exit interviews the third-party company had stopped paying them.

An earlier request to seek services from another provider was scuttled when Allied Universal, which acquired the initial contracting company G4S Secure Solutions in 2021, was the sole firm to respond with an offer.

Department leaders scrambled to staff the jail, locating two park rangers who’d been jail trained and securing additional temporary officers. Officials examined possibly contracting with the city of Huntington Beach for services or closing Costa Mesa’s jail altogether and having officers transport arrestees to county facilities.

“[That] would take our police officers off the street in an untimely manner and really diminish services to our patrol,” Lawrence said.

Basic jail services in Costa Mesa had been provided on a contract basis since 2013, when a former conservative-majority council determined cutting city staff — and the costly benefits and pensions they engender — could cut costs by as much as 45%.

Costa Mesa resident Ralph Taboada, who sits on the city’s Finance and Pension Advisory Committee, urged officials to take a deeper dive into the potential long-term costs of adding people to the city’s payroll.

“What’s the cost of these 11 employees for the next five years?” Taboada posed. “There needs to be a more diligent financial analysis, so you guys can make the most informed decision available to you.”

But a differently minded Mayor John Stephens explained Tuesday contracting public services to a for-profit provider left the city in a compromised position.

“To go with contractors for an essential service function creates a vulnerability, particularly when there’s only one contractor you can go with,” he said. “There’s not a cheaper option, and there’s not a better option — this is an easy decision.”

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