Tarrant County paid Recana Recruiting and Staffing Solutions roughly $2.3 million between January and June to help staff its understaffed jail, then ended the contract early anyway, and county leaders still have not publicly explained the full reason behind the decision. The company was formally terminated on June 14, after commissioners voted in May to end the two-year deal well ahead of schedule.
The final price tag came in nearly double the roughly $1.2 million estimate floated in May, according to the Fort Worth Report. Tarrant County Commissioners approved the original two-year contract with Recana in October 2025 in a 3-2 vote, with Republican members backing the deal while Democratic Commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles Jr. voted against it, according to KERA News.
A Deal Built on Vacancies and Overtime
Tarrant County turned to private staffing after a March 2024 in-house recruitment campaign spent $37,500 but netted just three hired detention officers, per the same station's reporting. At the beginning of the year, the jail had 202 vacancies; as of Tuesday, that figure stood at 92, according to the Fort Worth Report. Recana was required to help hire a minimum of 50 jailers under the contract but ultimately hired 34, with staffing services costing the county between $7,000 and $15,000 per recruited, trained and equipped jailer.
When commissioners first approved the contract, public agenda documents did not include an official contract text or a specified total price, with county administration saying it would be funded through savings from vacant positions and reduced overtime, per the same account. Recana, which had no prior experience managing recruitment for a county sheriff's office, covered new recruits' relocation expenses for their first 30 days under its staffing model. Before landing in Tarrant County, the company had secured a $1.2 million jail staffing contract with Liberty County, Texas, in 2024 and provided private detention facility management for the state's Operation Lone Star border program, according to The Texas Observer.
Certification Questions and a Closed-Session Dispute
Commissioner Alisa Simmons, who voted against the contract when it was proposed, said Recana failed the county by sending jailers who were not certified by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, a licensing requirement mandated by state law for county detention officers. She requested a briefing about Recana during a commissioners court meeting and questioned what measurable benefits the county gained from the arrangement.
Sheriff's office official Shannon Herklotz said all 34 jailers hired through the contract were certified, and that operationally, the county had no issues with Recana. Herklotz said the real issue was the speed of getting jailers through the hiring process. Simmons said there was a cause for ending the contract that was discussed in closed session, though the specific reasons for ending the deal were not publicly discussed during the May commissioners meeting.
A Fight Over Unpaid Invoices
Tarrant County paid more than $2 million after ending its contract early with Recana, including additional invoices totaling approximately $1,133,307.01 for services rendered from April 2026 through mid-June. The final Recana invoice reflected all services performed through June 14, 2026, the date the contract was officially terminated.
County Judge Tim O'Hare said the invoiced amounts needed to be paid for the jailers the company hired, and warned that not paying could expose the county to damages, attorney's fees, court costs and interest. O'Hare disagreed with Simmons' position on paying the invoices. Despite the dispute and the early termination, the county kept 22 of the Recana-hired jailers on staff after the contract ended.
Praise in April, Termination Weeks Later
The disconnect between agency statements and the court's decision is notable. In April, roughly a month before commissioners voted to end the contract, the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office publicly praised Recana, stating its personnel had integrated well and were serving as a great resource. The Tarrant County Sheriff's Office, which oversees the jail, did not respond when KERA News reached out for comment on the termination.
The staffing turmoil unfolds against a backdrop of intense scrutiny over conditions inside the Tarrant County Jail, where multiple inmates died in custody in June 2026 alone, as per KERA News. Hoodline has previously reported on renewed scrutiny of mortality rates at the facility, following earlier coverage of a mystery inmate death in December 2025. Despite the ongoing scrutiny and staffing shortfalls, the sheriff's office announced the jail passed its annual inspection by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards in May 2026.
The county has previously turned to costly stopgap measures to manage jail capacity strain, including an $18 million contract approved in August 2022 to send up to 600 inmates to a private correctional facility in Garza County, according to WFAA. With Recana now gone and dozens of vacancies still unfilled, questions remain about whether outsourced staffing offers Tarrant County any lasting fix, or simply another expensive, unresolved chapter in its jail's ongoing troubles.
