If Gary DeLand boasted of one accomplishment in his years as director of the Utah Department of Corrections, it was putting things on paper. When he left, there was a policy for everything.
Except at the Iron County Correctional Facility.Now, a year and a half after retiring, DeLand holds a lucrative contract to set things in order at that 220-inmate half-jail, half-prison. The fee: $90,000 over three years, split about even between county and state.
To Iron County Attorney Scott Burns, it's worth every penny.
But to others like consultant Lynn Lund, the price is simply "amazing." Lund wrote policy and procedure for every jail in Wyoming for $25,000.
Deland's fee is "a lot of money," said Larry Solomon, acting director of the National Institute of Corrections in Washington, D.C., which provides assistance and training for jails and prisons throughout the country. About the most the NIC ever provides in consulting grants is $20,000.
"And that would be for a whole state, not a single facility" housing only a fraction of the state's inmates, Solomon said. "All I can say is, they'll have to be one hell of a set of policies."
That's exactly what they are, said DeLand, who thinks Iron County is getting a bargain. Not only is it getting comprehensive policies, but he trains personnel and consults Burns on corrections law.
"If all I had to do was sit and write policy," he said Friday, then $90,000 would probably be high. "But I'm training. I'm auditing. I'm giving them assistance in litigation, where I charge $125 an hour elsewhere. I drive back and forth to Cedar City a couple of times a month.
"If I'm going to do all those things, I can only charge what my time is worth," DeLand said.
The Iron County Correctional Facility may be the only jail-prison in the country. Burns, Deland and others maintain its hybrid status has frustrated attempts to define policies that apply fairly to both categories of inmates.
For Burns, that's one of the reasons DeLand's time is worth so much.
But the NIC's Solomon isn't convinced the area is that specialized or that it would be difficult to mix and match procedures.
"It's not so unique that it should put one off," he said. "In many jails, half their populations might be state inmates being held because of overcrowding or some other reason. . . . This is not a new area."
Still, for a variety of reasons, that wasn't done in the years after the Iron County facility opened in 1987. DeLand, corrections director at the time, said he did everything he could given that the county had responsibility for day-to-day operations.
And while the topic came up almost monthly at meetings of the prison's oversight board - which had Deland and Burns as members - there was little movement.
There was talk of hiring an outside consultant, but whether DeLand was involved in those discussions is in dispute. DeLand says no, but Jim Robinson, director of the Iron County Correctional Facility, recalls discussions before DeLand stepped down in January 1992.
One thing is clear: once the decision was made to farm out the job, DeLand was everybody's top choice.
"I'm the one who approached Gary DeLand and asked him if he was interested," said Burns. The catalyst was a prison suicide that left the county potentially liable.
Hays Locke, who also sits on the oversight board, said the panel insisted the county handle the contract because of board members' close ties to DeLand. Locke is a Corrections employee.
"We were a little bit leery about signing a contract with the ex-director," he said. "We didn't want to be involved in picking the guy."
The county advertised for bids and Burns said he persuaded DeLand to submit a proposal. DeLand was the only bidder.
"And I can tell you that he was hesitant about even submitting a bid," Burns said. "While the problem preceded Gary, he wasn't approached until after he left" the department and oversight board.
"It's not as if someone said, `Hey, Gary's gone so now lets get him some money,' " he said.
Burns said the amount of the contract was based on what it would have cost the county to hire a deputy director to write policy and train personnel. The contract was awarded last August.
"I thought it was a bargain at the time, and still do," he said.
Before Deland started, Burns said, the county was facing more than a dozen lawsuits over the jail. All but two have since been dismissed.