Texas Commission on Jail Standards Executive Director Brandon Wood, right, and commission Chair Bill Stoudt listen in May as Tarrant County resident Cassandra Johnson speaks during the public comment segment of the commission’s quarterly meeting. Johnson’s son, Trelynn Wormley, died in July 2022 in the Tarrant County Jail, but it was not independently investigated by an outside law enforcement agency per state law. (Cody Copeland/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/TNS)

FORT WORTH — Issues with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards’ processes and data maintenance jeopardized its ability to determine if county jails comply with minimum standards, according to a state auditor’s report published last week.

The commission’s “complaint process, inspection process, and related data had weaknesses that could impact the Commission’s ability to effectively fulfill its core functions of providing safe, secure, and suitable local jail facilities,” the report by the State Auditor’s Office states.

Jail reform advocates said the audit validated concerns they have brought up for years, and wondered how many jails were not issued orders of noncompliance when they failed to meet minimum state standards.

Brandon Wood, the jail commission’s executive director, said the auditor’s office “did a very good job auditing the areas they looked at. They were very thorough.”

He highlighted the assessment of the commission’s inspections process, which the auditor rated as a “medium” risk level with regard to the agency’s ability to carry out its functions.

Since the last audit in 2019, the commission changed from an annual jail inspection model to a risk-based model. The most recent audit found that the commission needs to complete its limited inspections, which are less thorough checks in between larger comprehensive inspections, and update its processes for evaluating and scheduling jail inspections.

“This is the purpose of an audit, to find these things, and then you want to make sure that you can put corrective action in place to address it and potentially prevent it from occurring in the future,” Wood said.

However, the audit’s main issue involved its processes for dealing with complaints.

The auditor’s office rated issues with the commission’s complaints process and data maintenance as “high,” which means the problems could “substantially affect” its ability to effectively administer its programs if not addressed.

The commission received more than 9,700 complaints between Oct. 3, 2022, and Dec. 31, 2024. One of the biggest issues was that the commission could not provide evidence that it assigned a severity level to 95% of the complaints tested.

The severity level determines how quickly the commission is required to reach out to the jail in question. A Level 1 severity designation, for example, is considered a “life safety” issue and requires immediate action, according to commission policy cited in the report. Level 2 complaints include issues like overcrowding and supervision, and have a five-day time limit. All other complaints fall under Level 3, which requires the commission to contact a jail within 10 days.

The audit found the commission failed to reach out to jails within these minimum time frames in 19% of the complaints investigated. The commission did not update complainants on the investigation process in any of the complaints the auditor reviewed. It also failed to send notices of closure to complainants within 10 days of completing the investigation in 28% of cases.

Wood said the problem is likely due to a lack of consistency in how files are labeled in the commission’s computer system. Once a Level 1 complaint is completed, for example, it is moved out of a folder labeled “Level 1” and into a file for closed complaints.

The commission has four complaint inspectors, Wood said, as well as a program specialist to help triage complaints and one supervisor, but the agency continues to “debate internally” if the problem is due to insufficient staffing.

The commission has implemented its own auditing process for complaints in order to hopefully “catch those dropped balls” before they can make determinations about staff levels.

The audit found that 44% of complaints tested had at least one incorrect entry. These included names, dates and investigators. A quarter of complaints reviewed had an incorrect status, such as being listed as open after the investigation was closed.

The state auditor recommended the commission follow its policy when investigating complaints, adhere to established time frames for updates and notices, and strengthen its data maintenance processes.

In a response included in the report, the commission said it “agrees with the recommendations and will implement them accordingly.”

The report also found that the commission “designated law enforcement agencies to investigate deaths as required.”

The finding appeared to contradict a Star-Telegram investigation from February that showed the commission had not been appointing outside law enforcement agencies to investigate jail deaths for over seven years. The jail commission began making those appointments less than a month later.

The auditor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The commission began to receive more complaints in March 2022 after a bill passed in the state legislature the year before required jails to post information about the complaints process in living areas.

The bill was the direct result of work by Texas Jail Project, a group that advocates for incarcerated people in the state. The organization had been receiving complaints from people in jails who mistook it for the state regulatory agency.

“We feel completely validated,” said executive director Krishnaveni Gundu “We had to fight for that bill to pass. So yes, of course, the volume of complaints is going to grow, because people didn’t know that they had the right to even file complaints.”

But Gundu highlighted the importance of properly maintaining complaint data to the core of the commission’s functions, “because complaints are what should be driving who they inspect, how they inspect, what issues they look for.”

Without collecting, maintaining and using complaint data properly, the commission will continue to send out the “slap-in-the-face responses after people die,” she said, adding, “How many jails should have been found noncompliant but we’re never given that because of the way they did this?”