Canadian County Jail Administrator Jennifer Graumann tendered her resignation last week and will end her 13-month run at the jail Feb. 17, Sheriff Randall Edwards told commissioners Monday.
Graumann came to Oklahoma from Florida, where she worked at the Hillsborough County Jail in Tampa. With her husband serving in Afghanistan until November and unable to sell the home the couple owns in Florida, Graumann said she had no choice but to return to Tampa for financial reasons.
“Jennifer and her husband have been maintaining two homes, and her working here has caused them a financial burden,” Edwards said. “As much as I don't like it, I certainly understand her decision.”
Edwards hired Graumann after taking office in January 2009. After voters rejected a $24.8 million proposal for a new jail, Edwards said he and his new administrator faced what they believed to be “an almost impossible task” — bringing a jail said by both former sheriff Lewis Hawkins and architect Bill Knowles to be “unfixable” into compliance with the Oklahoma Jail Administrator's standards.
“We were looking at a building that they (Hawkins and Knowles) said had problems that couldn't be fixed and wondering what we could do,” Edwards said.
Graumann has overseen both physical and administrative changes at the jail since last January, Edwards said. From purchasing new locks, bunks and other equipment, to major repairs to the building's roof, showers and plumbing, and hiring a company dedicated to medical services for prisoners, what was a laundry list of deficiencies in March has boiled down to one item — overcrowding.
That problem will be one passed on to Graumann's replacement, Bob Stuart. A deputy with the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office, Edwards said Stuart is scheduled to begin work on Monday.
“As much as I don't want Jennifer to leave, Bob is someone we both feel can continue what she has started,” he said.
Not only has overcrowding been an ongoing problem, the issue hit a dubious high in recent days, when 115 prisoners were logged in at the jail. That number has not gone down as of Wednesday.
“It's one of those problems that we don't know how to fix,” Edwards said. “We are moving people out to DOC (Department of Corrections) as quickly as we can, the judges are moving as fast as they can go, but there are just people who need to be in there.”