Sheriff Entrekin Again

Seems like the Sheriff of Etowah County can't catch a break.  The article below is an editorial from AL.COM.  Whitmire used the same arithmetic as we did a day or so ago to explain how the 'system' worked out in the sheriff's favor.  If it was just a couple of sheriffs using a state law to their advantage, we the people could isolate the cancer and cut it out next election cycle.  But this practice is endemic throughout the state.  When oh when will the legislature develop the stones to defy the Union of Greedy Sheriffs and change the law?   Take a deep breath and hold it.

Alabama sheriff pocketed more than he spent on jail food

Updated Mar 26, 3:41 PM; Posted Mar 26, 1:50 PM

By Kyle Whitmire

kwhitmire@al.com

On Friday, Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin released a lot of documents. The packet of paper he gave to the media was about an inch thick.

Two years of tax returns were in that packet.

Mortgage records for his beach property were in there.

He even included a weekly menu for his jail.

If you told me Entrekin's eighth grade report card was in there, I'd have to look twice before I'd say you were wrong.

But you know what wasn't in that packet? All the records the Southern Center for Human Rights and Alabama Appleseed sought through a public information request -- the bank statements, check registers and other documents that show how he's spending his jail food funds and who's getting that money.

That's the most important thing for us to see right now. And he's still keeping that secret.

Chew on that one for a moment: Whatever those records show, he'd rather show you his last two tax returns than what's in those documents.  

When I challenged him on it Friday, Entrekin tried to argue that he couldn't make those records public because of an ongoing lawsuit.

"The reason you don't have that today is because there is a court case pending," he said. "You can look at mine right there. I put you what I made. Take it from there. I paid taxes on it. So there's my money, right there."

There are a couple of things wrong with that.

First, we know from one check Reckon's Connor Sheets obtained that Entrekin pays for personal expenses out of the jail food fund. At least once, he paid a man to mow his grass with that fund.

Without seeing the jail food fund bank records, it's impossible to tell whether he reported that as compensation to the IRS. It's also impossible to tell what all else he's paying for out of the fund.

So no, we can't tell from the inch-thick packet whether he paid taxes on what he's supposed to.

And this business of him not making the other documents public because he's being sued? He's being sued because he didn't make the documents public.

Alabama's open records law says that all public writings are public documents, to be made available for inspection upon request, unless those documents are protected by statute. There's no statute protecting Entrekin's food fund documents from public disclosure, or if there is, no sheriff in Alabama has invoked that protection.

Instead, Entrekin and 48 other Alabama sheriffs, who are also hiding their documents from similar public information requests, have argued that these are their  personal documents and that the jail food funds are their personal businesses.

None of this is to say that documents Entrekin did make public are worthless. In fact, looking at them, you might wonder why he turned them over. I certainly have.

For instance, they show that in 2015, Entrekin's gross receipts for the jail food fund (which he treats as a private sole proprietorship on his taxes) were $698,251. From that, he paid $340,079 toward the costs of goods sold (the food in the jail) and then he claimed a $358,172 profit.

Did you catch that? He pocketed more money than he spent on inmate food.

Further, in his press conference, Entrekin gave some rough details on how many prisoners he feeds, where the funds come from and how he manages the money for feeding them. For starters, he doesn't keep federal, state and local funds separate. He said he puts them all into one food provisions fund.

Also, he said he has about 850 prisoners at one time, with about 500 of those being state inmates, which the state pays him $1.75 a day to feed.

There's going to be some math here, but please hang with me.

If you multiply 500 by $1.75 a day, that's $875 per day in state money.

If you multiply that $875 by 365 days, that's $319,375 a year in state inmate food funds. That's the maximum he should be allowed to keep for himself under this archaic state law, supposing he figured out a way to magically feed state inmates for free.

All of this is really rough math, but remember, in 2015, Entrekin pocketed $358,172 of excess jail food funds. In 2016, he pocketed $336,204.

Even if he's pocketing all of the state funds, it's hard to see how he gets to the amount his taxes show he's keeping as profit.

Depending on how you dice the onion, it appears he's either feeding all his prisoners with federal money or pocketing federal money, or maybe both.

Again, the documents he released don't tell.

Of course, there's an easy way for Entrekin to show exactly where the money's going so we wouldn't need any rough math at all. If he wants to clear the air, he could make the jail food fund documents public.

But to that, he'd have to do something really transparent -- he'd have to obey the law.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.