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Florida Department of Corrections, Tallahassee, Florida
February 9, 2009 St
Petersburg Times
Three times a day, the inmates at Madison Correctional Institution
discover what a budget deficit tastes like. The scene in the prison chow
hall in this quaint North Florida town is repeated across the state as it
returns to in-house food service and struggles to cut costs. While the
inmate population is growing, the Legislature is cutting spending in the
nation's third-largest state prison system. Florida is now coping with the
effects of a failed and expensive food-privatization venture of former Gov.
Jeb Bush. In 2001, Florida turned over most prison food operations to
Aramark Corp., even after Ohio had scrapped a similar experiment with bad
results. After seven years marked by numerous irregularities, fines for
sloppy service and a state report that flagged the vendor's
"windfall" profits, Aramark pulled out of Florida prisons last
month. The firm said it could no longer make money due to skyrocketing prices
of bread, milk and other staples amid pressure from the state to cut costs.
A second, smaller company also left: Trinity Services Group of Oldsmar had
served meals at North Florida prisons, including Madison. Now that the
vendors are gone, the privatization experiment is officially dead and the
state must run an in-house meals program on less money amid the worst
budget crisis in decades. In fiscal 2007-08, Florida paid two private
vendors a total of $85 million. The current year's food budget is $76
million. Aramark's per-diem rate, or cost per day to feed an inmate, was
$2.69. Now it's $2.12, which will force the state to make menu changes to
save money.
December 23, 2008 Gainesville Sun
Florida's inmates will soon have a new chef in the kitchen. By the
second week of January, all food served in state prisons will be prepared
by state employees and inmates. The Department of Corrections is taking
over in the kitchen after its two contracted providers, Trinity Food
Services and Aramark Correctional Services, terminated their contracts to
feed inmates. Both providers have told prison officials that inflation,
especially rapidly rising food costs, was a primary factor in their
decisions to end their contracts. The department is taking over at a time
when the inmate population is growing significantly and the Legislature is
cutting expenditures. The 2008 state Legislature cut the department's
2008-2009 food appropriation by $9.25 million to $76.5 million. When the
Legislature met in the spring, the inmate population was estimated at
nearly 89,000, but earlier this month topped 100,000 for the first time in
state history. Prison contracts show Trinity pulled out of the prisons it
was serving in November and Aramark will be out of all the prisons it has
been serving by Jan. 12. Since beginning to assume control of the prison
kitchens, the department has contracted with U.S. Food Services to provide
food.
November 13, 2008 Palm Beach Post
A seven-year privatization effort for prison food services is
officially over as the state begins taking over meal preparation in some
prisons today. But Florida prison officials are unable to pinpoint exactly
how much serving nearly 100,000 inmates will save taxpayers, or if it will
at all. "We don't have a number right now," Department of
Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger
said this week. Corrections officials were ordered by the legislature this
year to trim more than $9.2 million from their annual $83.9 million food
services budget by cutting back on calories, changing the meal plan and
allowing the two vendors to reduce staff. But prison officials were
reluctant to implement reductions because they feared it could lead to
inmate uprisings and endanger guards. After rebidding the food services
contract and issuing an invitation to bid on just food, the department
settled on a $77.2 million contract with U.S. Food Services to supply the
food and take over cooking the meals and cleaning up in-house. Lawmakers
have been looking for places to trim the state budget all year with as much
as $3 billion less in revenue than expected. They could meet as early as
next month for another cost-cutting session. "The days of 'trust me'
and ask the legislature to just sign off on things are over. People are
going to have to justify every cent that the public provides. If it saves
money, I'm all for it. But everything's going to have to be proven,"
said Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, who served on the Senate Criminal and
Civil Justice Appropriations Committee and was appointed Rules Chairman Thursday.
Vendors Trinity Food Services and Aramark said they could not cut costs
without changing the menu, something else prison officials were reluctant
to do because studies show that meal changes create disturbances in
prisons. Both Vendors Trinity Food Services and Aramark vendors gave notice
this year sent letters to the department earlier this year giving officials
notice that they were going to walk away from the contracts. DOC this
summer reissued a bid food services and another for food products only. The
cheapest bid for food services came from Philadelphia-based Aramark for
$96.1 million, Plessinger said, nearly $21.5
million more than their revised budget allows. "We're looking at all
of those numbers and we do believe it will come in under $96.1 million,"
Plessinger said of the new contract. Since
signing a contract with the state seven years ago, Aramark has received
mixed reviews. There have been questions about food quality, quantity and
potential health violations. At times, the company has been fined by the
state for failure to meet the specifications of its contract. The company
now faces fines of more than $300,000 for violations. Trinity, which serves
the region of the state from Madison to Flagler counties, will cease
serving food today. Aramark will gradually withdraw from the rest of the
state and will be out of the state's prison food business by mid-January.
Taking back food operations is "quite unprecedented for a department
of corrections," Aramark spokeswoman Sarah Jarvis said. Prison officials
they can cut the food price by altering the menu and making other cost
savings quickly, Plessinger said. The department
will realize 100 percent of the savings by changing the menu to cheaper
items instead of splitting that with the vendors, she said. The plan
includes having inmates grow more of their own food and training them as
cooks, Plessinger said, part of DOC's efforts to
prepare inmates for release. "We think this is going to be a win for
everybody. First and foremost for Florida taxpayers because this is the
best way for us to cut our food budget. It's also a win for our inmates
because it's going to expand training programs for them," Plessinger said, while maintaining prison safety.
Egeler
Reception and Guidance Center
Blackman
Charter Township, Michigan
May 12, 2017 usatoday.com
Prison worker fired, accused of kitchen sex with inmate
LANSING, Mich. — A prison food worker at a Michigan prison was fired Wednesday
after she and an inmate were caught having sex in the kitchen, a state
Department of Corrections spokesman said Thursday. The incident happened
inside a cooler just after dinner at the Charles Egeler Reception and
Guidance Center in Jackson, Mich., where new inmates are sent before they
are assigned to a longer-term prison. “The allegation is that she was
observed having sex with a prisoner” who worked in the kitchen, said Chris Gautz, a department spokesman. The Trinity Services
Group worker was fired for “over-familiarity,” and the Michigan State
Police were notified, he said. “Prisoners have no ability under the law to
consent to sexual contact,” Gautz said. “The
Trinity employee could face charges, but that is up to the (Michigan State
Police) and local prosecutor.” Gautz said such
conduct is "serious and completely unacceptable" because it
"jeopardizes the safety of the prisoner, our staff and the security of
the facility." He said, "The individual was immediately removed
from the facility and will no longer be allowed to work at the
prison." The 40-year-old inmate is serving a five- to 15-year sentence
for unarmed robbery, state records show. This is the latest in a long line
of incidents involving over-familiarity, smuggling and other issues since
the Michigan Department of Corrections privatized its food service as a
cost-cutting measure in 2013. Such instances were rare when prison kitchens
were staffed with state employees, who received higher pay and benefits and
prisons experienced far less turnover. In September, it was reported that a
Trinity worker was fired after she and an inmate were caught kissing inside
a kitchen cooler, also at Egeler. In 2014, four female prison food workers
employed by Aramark Correctional Services at Bellamy Creek Correctional
Facility in Ionia, Mich., were fired for having inappropriate sexual
contact with male inmates inside a walk-in cooler, officials said. Aramark
of Philadelphia, which replaced about 370 state kitchen workers in December
2013, ended its three-year, problem-plagued contract early and was replaced
by Florida-based Trinity in 2015. Trinity signed a three-year,
$158.8-million contract, but is in line for a $4-million raise, based on
inflationary increases and the number of meals served, officials said in
March. Since taking over the contract, Trinity has been hit with $2.1
million in fines for contract infractions such as unauthorized meal
substitutions, delays in serving meals, inadequate staffing levels and
sanitation issues, among other problems. As of the end of March, Trinity
employees had received 132 stop orders, banning them from prison property
for firing offenses such as smuggling or over-familiarity. At the same
point in its contract, Aramark workers had received 177 stop orders, officials
said.
Fulton County Jail, Fulton, Georgia
July 18, 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County can't seem to resolve a $4 million deal to provide food
service to county jail inmates, a contract marked by allegations of
corruption and employee misconduct. The board failed to end the controversy
again Wednesday with a deadlocked 3-3 vote on a proposal to keep the
current company, Trinity Services Group, for another year. Commissioners,
who have discussed the deal at length half a dozen times in the past
several months, didn't bother Wednesday. They simply took the latest vote
with no discussion. The deal has gone through several attempts to bid and
rebid with three main groups seeking the work all being ranked No. 1 at
different times. The controversy has generated bid complaints and lawsuits
from spurned bidders that continue. Evaluators recommended Trinity in the
latest round of bids completed June 15 over teams from Gourmet/Aramark and
Meat Masters. Meat Masters has filed suit challenging the bids and the
process and seeking award of the deal. The company's lawyer, Charles
Mathis, accused county staff of improperly manipulating bid results to keep
Meat Masters from winning the bid. County attorney O.V. Brantley said he
looked into the allegations but found no reason to call in criminal
investigators. The third bidder, Gourmet-Aramark Correctional Services,
also says it was cheated out of the contract. The company filed a formal
bid protest with the county. The firm also alleged collusion involving the
other two bidders because Meat Masters filed a bid but also was included as
a subcontractor on the winning bid by Trinity.
March 22, 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County will take a step back and ask more companies to bid on a
contract to feed inmates at the Fulton County Jail. Fulton's County
Commission voted unanimously Wednesday for a 90-day deferral on a vote to
hire a food service provider for the jail and satellite facilities. County
purchasing officials are to use the delay to advertise the contract in
national publications that cater to the corrections industry. Commissioners
weren't pleased by a staff recommendation to hire Gourmet-ARAMARK
Correctional Services, which the county fired two years ago. Some
commissioners drilled into the county's purchasing guidelines because they
give a big bonus to companies that have an office in Fulton County.
Commissioner Robb Pitts said Gourmet-ARAMARK would have won the contract
even if all three bidders had scored the same in every category but one — location.
For the sole reason that it was the only company with a physical address in
Fulton County, the company outscored its competition and won the staff's
recommendation, Pitts said. Chairman John Eaves said he didn't understand
why Gourmet-ARAMARK got the nod when its $4 million bid was the highest of
the three that were submitted. It was about $1 million higher than the low
bidder. Eaves made the motion to defer the vote. Felicia Strong-Whitaker, a
deputy director of the county's purchasing department, said the county's
purchasing guidelines state that cost makes up 25 points of the formula
used to recommend a company for this type of contract. A company gets an
automatic 10 points if it has an office in Fulton County, she said.
February 21, 2007 Atlanta
Journal-Constitution
Amid allegations of bid rigging and corruption, Fulton County commissioners
agreed Wednesday to rebid a lucrative food service contract at the county
jail. County Attorney O.V. Brantley said Wednesday she's launched a probe
into the allegations, but Commissioner Robb Pitts said any investigation
should be turned over to state or federal agents. "Someone seems hell
bent on giving the contract to this firm," Pitts said. "I'm going
to find out why.... This is serious stuff...This needs to be investigated,
not in house but by someone outside." The Trinity Services Group won
the original contract in 2005, but it expired more than a year ago. When it
was rebid in December, Trinity received the recommendation, even though it
was the highest bidder of the three, according to county records. One of
the firms that was rejected filed a formal protest with the county, and the
other filed a letter, also with the county, claiming employees were
pressured to change bid evaluations to ensure that the deal stayed with
Trinity. Charles Mathis Jr. said his client, Meat Masters Inc., was the
rightful winner of the contract with a bid that was $850,000 lower than
Trinity's $4.1 million offer. They only failed, Mathis said in his letter,
because county employees were pressured to doctor the bid evaluations.
"Meat Masters should legitimately be awarded the contract,"
Mathis wrote. Two county employees, Sgt. Chandra Hall and former Chief
Jailer Charles Felton, provided written statements to Meat Masters that they
had been directed to change the contract evaluations to boost the results
for Trinity. The Board of Commissioners has copies of the letters, which
were also obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Both said they were
threatened that if they went before commissioners with Meat Masters as the
bidder they would be hammered. The other bidder, Gourmet-Aramark
Correctional Services, has alleged collusion involving the other two
bidders since Meat Masters was included as a subcontractor on the winning
bid by Trinity. Lawyer Michael Coleman, who served as hearing officer for
the complaint, issued a ruling on Feb. 16 that recommended Fulton rebid the
deal. "Due to the questions raised by the county's rejection of
Gourmet-ARAMARK's proposal and the collusion claims involving Trinity and
Meat Masters, the appropriate remedy is to cancel the current RFP and
re-issue a new RFP," Coleman found.
Michigan Department of Corrections
Feb 8, 2018 detroitnews.com
State set to end private prison food service
Lansing — Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday said the state is moving away
from paying private vendors to prepare state prison food. His budget
proposal unveiled to lawmakers at the Capitol included a proposed $13.7
million in new money for prison food with the goal of returning the job to
state workers following several years of problems with private prison food
vendors Aramark Correctional Services and Trinity Services Group. The extra
money appears targeted at financing the move back to state food workers.
“We’ve worked with a couple of different private vendors on that process,”
Snyder said. “Their cost structures, a number of issues, I believe it’s
appropriate to say the benefits of continuing on that path don’t outweigh
the cost and that we should transition to doing that back in house.” The
Republican-led Legislature voted to privatize prison food in 2012, a move
that was projected to save the state $16 million a year as contract workers
replaced more than 370 state employees. The state canceled an initial
three-year, $145 million contract with Aramark in the summer of 2015 after
allegations of sexual activity between employees and prisoners, unsanitary
conditions including maggots and food problems. Aramark’s contract began in
December 2013. Trinity took over food service in August 2015 after signing
a three-year, $158 million contract with the state. It has since been fined
more than $2 million for unplanned meal substitutions, delays, staffing
shortages and contract violations. But this summer, the Michigan Department
of Corrections will return to a state-run food service after agreeing not
to renew another contract with Trinity when the current contract expires —
a move that was called a mutual decision by the state and Trinity. Michigan
fined Trinity $4.5 million in total for contract violations, unplanned meal
substitutions, delays and staffing shortages. The state forbid 197 Trinity
contracted workers from working in state prisons, essentially firing them.
Last year, Trinity asked the state for a 10.3 percent increase -- totaling
$5.2 million -- to help with staffing issues, said Correction spokesman
Chris Gautz. Gautz said
$6.6 million of Snyder’s $13.7 million prison spending increase request are
“legacy costs” and would not constitute new funding. The move is being met
with mixed reactions across party lines. Rep. Laura Cox, the Republican and
chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, said “there will be some
angst with probably both chambers” because of the increased cost of
shifting prison food services back to the state. “My knee jerk reaction is
not supportive of that,” Cox said. But Democrats such as Rep. Jon Hoadley,
D-Kalamazoo, said the shift was a long time coming. “When you try to
privatize services, it often means you’re getting a lower quality product,”
he said. “”This idea that you can govern with spreadsheets doesn’t work
because people are human beings and we have to make sure we’re putting
people first in our budget.” The shift would bring about 350 state workers
back into prison kitchens, according to the Department of Corrections. “As
the contract with Trinity was approaching its end, we took the opportunity
to re-examine our operations,” Corrections Director Heidi Washington said
in a statement. “After discussing options with Trinity, it was determined
it was in the best interest of both parties not to renew our agreement. We
believe the department’s needs would be better met by returning to
state-run food service.” The unionized prison workers had complained about
the privatized food service and called for a return to state-run prison
food service. The state corrections system said that while private vendors
saved money, the savings did not outweigh problems with food preparation,
high employee turnover and other problems. A liberal group that has called
on Snyder to scrap private prison food contracts for years praised the
announcement in a statement Wednesday. “Progress Michigan has been calling
for this cancellation for years and we uncovered many of the problems with
these contracts, which, frankly, should have ended years ago,” said Lonnie
Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan. “The abuses and waste that
has resulted from these contracts have endangered corrections officers,
prison employees and prisoners.” The Michigan Corrections Organization, the
union for corrections officers, is lauding the proposal as helping to boost
prison safety, said Andy Potter, the union’s chief of staff and vice
president. Having bad and meager food “puts the folks that are incarcerated
along with the staff in danger. ... It’s a safety issue, to put it short,”
Potter said.
Aug 26, 2017 usatoday.com
Prison food worker: 'I was fired for refusing to
serve rotten potatoes'
LANSING, Mich. — A prison food worker said he was
fired last week after he refused to serve rotten potatoes to inmates at a
Michigan correctional facility. “It was the most disgusting thing I’ve seen
in my life,” said Steve Pine, 48, of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., who worked
for Trinity Services Group at Kinross Correctional Facility in Kinross,
Mich., since July 2016. Kinross, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is about
329 miles north of Detroit. “They had about 100 bags of rotten potatoes,”
Pine said. “You could smell them,” and “they had black and green mold all
over them.” A corrections officer on duty agreed the potatoes should be
thrown out instead of being used to prepare meals for the next day, but a
Trinity supervisor disagreed, Pine said. When Pine, in front of prisoners
who work in the kitchen preparing and serving meals, refused orders to have
the inmates pick through the potatoes to find ones that could still be
served, “they told me I was trying to start a riot," he said of
Trinity supervisors. Pine left Kinross on Saturday, having lost his job,
believing the potatoes were served to prisoners Sunday. But Corrections
Department spokesman Chris Gautz said Thursday
that none of the potatoes was ultimately served. "After inspecting
them, it turned out only about a third of the potatoes needed to be
discarded," Gautz said in an email. "But
because the Trinity employee spoke about it in front of the inmates so
loudly, the prisoners had concerns," he said. "So the next day,
when the potatoes were to be used, none were. Even though all the bad ones
had been thrown out, to alleviate prisoner concerns, a substitute was used,
instead." Calls seeking comment to Trinity in Florida and the offices
of a related company in St. Louis were not returned Thursday. Pine, who
said he has more than 20 years of experience in the food industry and managed
a restaurant in Brimley, Mich., said until his firing Saturday, he had a
clean work record with Trinity, except for once receiving a verbal
reprimand for leaving early. Pine said he was not trying to incite a riot.
But he said serving rotten food can lead to the kind of unrest Kinross
witnessed last September, when inmates barricaded themselves in their
housing areas, smashed windows and fixtures and set fires in an incident
that cost the state $900,000. The quality and quantity of prison food was
among the reasons cited for what corrections officers called Michigan's
first prison riot since 1981. The administration refused to classify the
disturbance as a riot, noting no prisoners or officers were injured.
"They told me I was trying to start a riot," Pine said. "I
said: 'No, you're serving rotten potatoes. That's going to get to the
yard.' " Tom Tylutki,
president of the Michigan Corrections Organization, the union representing
corrections officers, said officers who worked at Kinross in September
"said in no uncertain terms that food quality and quantity was one of
the inmates' complaints" that led to what he
considers a riot. "Poor food quality and quantity puts the safety of
everyone inside a prison at risk, like we saw last year," Tylutki said in an email. "Everyone deserves
healthy, nutritious food prepared in a sanitary environment, and that goes
for inmates, too. This is a moral issue for all sides." The state
privatized its prison food service as a cost-cutting move in 2013,
replacing about 370 state kitchen workers with contractor Aramark
Correctional Services of Philadelphia. That three-year, $145-millon
contract, plagued with problems such as smuggling, sex between Aramark
workers and inmates and unauthorized meal substitutions, ended early in
September 2015, when the state replaced Aramark with Trinity. Since then,
officials say problems have decreased, but they have not ended. Trinity,
awarded a three-year, $158.8-million contract, has had 161 of its Michigan
prison employees "stop ordered" — banned from prison property for
various violations — since it took over the contract, Gautz
said. Trinity has also been hit with $2.1 million in fines for contract
infractions such as unauthorized meal substitutions, delays in serving
meals, inadequate staffing levels and sanitation issues, among other
problems. Trinity provides service to 43 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands
and Puerto Rico, according to its website.
Aug 26, 2017 wzzm13.com
Ex-kitchen worker pleads guilty to trying to smuggle heroin into Ionia
prison
IONIA, MICH. - A former prison food worker faces up to a year behind
bars after he pleaded guilty to attempting to smuggle heroin into Ionia
Correctional Facility. Adrian Delgado, 27, of Portland, pleaded guilty Aug.
11 to drug and prison smuggling charges. Ionia County Prosecutor Kyle
Butler said Delgado, who worked for prison food contractor Trinity Services
Group, showed up for work May 19, 2016, with .62 grams of heroin taped to
his leg. "We take these cases seriously," Butler said. "These
types of cases affect the safety of corrections officers and the stablity of the institution." There have been
numerous such incidents since 2013, when the state switched to private
contractors, who use lower-paid employees with high turnover, to provide
prison food services. Previous incidents of prison food workers caught with
drugs include: A Trinity food service worker at Cotton Correctional
Facility near Jackson was fired and turned over to the Michigan State
Police in September 2016, after a search as he reported to work that day
turned up suspected drugs. An Aramark Correctional Services kitchen worker at Gus Harrison
Correctional Facility in Adrian was fired and banned from prison property
in October 2014 on suspicion of smuggling marijuana into the prison. A
former Aramark worker pleaded guilty in Jackson County Circuit Court in
March 2014 to attempting to smuggle two packages of marijuana into the G.
Robert Cotton Correctional Facility near Jackson. In September 2014, an
Aramark worker was fired from St. Louis Correctional Facility, suspected of
smuggling drugs, after five prisoners were found with heroin, marijuana,
cocaine and tobacco. Officials say problems have declined, but have
continued, since Florida-based Trinity replaced Philadelphia-based Aramark
in September 2015. Though data comparing the number of drug smuggling cases
involving prison kitchen workers before and after privatization, the
Corrections Department has not disputed union assertions that such
incidents were comparatively rare when state workers supervised the
preparation and serving of meals by inmates. The department, upon request,
has released data on the number of "stop orders" issued to
Trinity and Aramark employees, banning them from prison property for a
range of offenses that can include smuggling of drugs or other contraband
and over-familiarity with prisoners. Trinity has had 161 of its Michigan
prison employees "stop ordered" — banned from prison property for
various violations, since it took over the contract, Corrections Department
spokesman Chris Gautz said Friday. Gautz didn't have a comparable figure for Aramark, but
at the end of March, Trinity employees had received 132 stop orders. At the
same point in its contract, Aramark workers had received 177 stop orders,
he said. Again, there isn't comparable data from when state workers were
employed in the kitchen, because the department says it didn't track stop
orders in the same way at that time. But Ed Buss, a consultant the state
hired to oversee the prison food contract, said in 2014 the numbers were
dramatically lower prior to privatization, noting the state kitchen worker
with the least seniority at one Michigan prison had been there 15 years
when Aramark took over. Delgado, who was to stand trial last week, admitted
in Ionia County Circuit Court he planned to deliver the heroin to an
inmate, Butler told the Free Press.Delgado is to
be sentenced by Judge Ronald Schafer. A sentencing date has not been set.
Possession of cocaine with intent to deliver it is a 20-year felony, but
Delgado's jail time is capped at 12 months under his plea agreement, Butler
said. Michael Honeywell, an Ionia attorney representing Delgado, declined
comment Friday. A Trinity spokesperson could not be reached for comment
Friday. "The department makes it a priority to search for contraband
entering our facilities whether from visitors or state or contract
employees," Gautz said. "Working inside
a prison can be a dangerous job and that is only magnified when having to
deal with a prisoner who is under the influence of narcotics."
Aramark, which replaced about 370
state kitchen workers in December 2013, ended its three-year,
problem-plagued contract early and was replaced by Florida-based Trinity in
2015. Trinity, which replaced Aramark in September 2015, signed a
three-year, $158.8-million contract, but is in line for a $4-million raise,
based on inflationary increases and the number of meals served, officials
said in March. Gautz said that even with a
$4-million increase, the contract will still be saving the state more than
$11 million a year over what it cost to provide the same service with state
employees. Since taking over the contract, Trinity has been hit with $2.1
million in fines for contract infractions such as unauthorized meal
substitutions, delays in serving meals, inadequate staffing levels and
sanitation issues, among other problems. Anita Lloyd, a spokeswoman for the
Michigan Corrections Organization, a union representing corrections
officers, did not respond to an e-mail and phone call seeking comment.
Jan 21, 2017 detroitnews.com
Mich. prison contractor fined $2M over service issues
Michigan has fined its new private prison food service contractor more
than $2 million for unplanned meal substitutions, delays, staffing
shortages and other contract violations since late 2015, the state
Department of Corrections confirmed Friday. Florida-based Trinity Food
Services signed a three-year, $158 million contract in July 2015 after the
state terminated its initial deal with Aramark Correctional Services over
problems, including maggots found in kitchen areas and worker sex acts with
prisoners. The Trinity fines include roughly $900,000 for meal
substitutions, meaning Trinity was not able to provide food items it
promised and instead served alternatives. The company was also fined
roughly $357,000 for meal service delays and around $356,000 for staffing
vacancies. Trinity is contractually obligated to provide the state with 350
prison food service workers. As of Monday, it had 309 employees and 27 others
who were set to begin in the near future, according to the department.
Spokesman Chris Gautz said the Department of
Corrections is working with the Department of Talent and Economic
Development for help reaching new candidates for jobs that have proven
difficult to fill. “The department and director feel staffing really is the
key issue,” Gautz told The Detroit News. “If they
had full staffing and had a consistent experienced staff, you would have
fewer fines for staffing. But we think you’d also see far fewer fines for
meal substitutions and delays.” The state has issued “stop orders”
prohibiting 114 Trinity employees from working in Michigan prisons, largely
due to “over-familiarity” with prisoners. That’s down from 159 stop orders
against Aramark during the same period, Gautz
said. A Trinity spokesperson did not immediately respond Friday to a
request for comment. Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration had fined Aramark
$200,000 before ending the contract about two years after the
Republican-led Legislature required the state to privatize prison food
service in an attempt to save money. The new deal struck with Trinity
includes stricter language requiring fines for various violations. The
state deducts the fines from its monthly payments to the company. Gautz said contract “accountability was always key” for
Corrections Director Heidi Washington, who took over the department in May
2015. “This is us holding them accountable, as we do with all our vendors,”
he said. But critics say the Trinity fines are the latest evidence that
contracting out prison food service to private companies has been a bad
deal for Michigan, which laid off state workers in hopes of cutting costs.
“These services never should have been privatized,” said Lonnie Scott,
executive director of liberal advocacy group Progress Michigan, who also
pointed to problems that surfaced last year at a Grand Rapids veterans home
where some residential care aide positions had been privatized. “To me,
it’s just another indictment of the Republican philosophy that
privatization fixes everything.” Prisoners in an Upper Peninsula facility
staged a protest in March that was prompted, in part, by frustrations with
food quality. But Gautz said food was one of
several concerns those prisoners had raised. The department has a solid
working relationship with Trinity and is holding the company to its
contract, he said. “Things ebb and flow, but I think on a trend line they
are getting better,” Gautz said. “Things are
improving, and we want to see them continue to improve. These fines will
continue to be assessed.”
Michigan
Reformatory
Ionia Michigan
Jan 9, 2016 mlive.com
Prison food worker under investigation for alleged drug smuggling
IONIA, MI -- A former food services worker is under investigation for
allegedly smuggling drugs into an Ionia prison. A Michigan State Police
spokesperson confirmed detectives are investigating allegations that a
Trinity Services Group worker smuggled drugs into Michigan Reformatory, a
Level II and IV prison that houses men. Michigan Department of Corrections
put a stop order on the employee Sept. 11. The Florida-based food services
group later fired the worker. The state police spokesperson declined to
release further details about the case due to the open investigation.
Charges have not been filed. Trinity took control of prison food service in
September after the state cancelled a three-year, $145 million contract
with Aramark following performance marked by controversy. Aramark was
accused of employee misconduct and inappropriate relationships with
inmates, maggot-related food incidents, and inadequate staffing. The
contract with Aramark was scheduled to run until September 2016.
Valley Street jail
Manchester, NH
Jun 5, 2019 unionleader.com
220 dinners go uneaten at Valley Street jail
as rumors fly over a bug in the food
MANCHESTER — Inmates at the Valley Street jail refused to leave their cells
to eat dinner Sunday when rumors spread that an insect, which turned out to
be a burned piece of turkey, was found in an inmate’s meal, the jail
superintendent said Monday. The fasting followed two discoveries of worms
in jail food over the last 10 months, since Hillsborough County signed a
contract with a company that specializes in supplying food to correctional
facilities, said Superintendent David Dionne. Dionne said the company —
Trinity Food Services — told him it changed its supplier after he
complained about the second bug. The first was a corn weevil found in
frozen corn. The second was a worm found in a grain product, he said. Dionne
said 220 dinners were prepared at the jail on Sunday. He said inmates
wouldn’t leave their cells to eat them. On Monday morning, they decided to
eat. “We sat down and spoke with them. They understood we’re looking at
it,” Dionne said. He said Valley Street jail has a commercial kitchen, and
a piece of turkey was likely burned when it was being cooked in a big
skillet. “I’m thinking that we burned the food,” he said. He stressed the
bugs were not from the jail. Dionne brought in a technician from the pest
company the jail contracts with and he identified the bug was not native to
New Hampshire. Dionne said Hillsborough County contracted with Trinity
about 10 months ago. Previously, the Department had ordered and purchased
the food on its own. Trinity supplies all the food as well as nutrition and
dietitian services, he said. Dionne said he did not have the dates of the
bug discoveries readily available. But they were not recent, he said. According
to its website, the St. Louis-based TKC Holdings owns Trinity Food Service.
The website said Trinity supplies food to more than 300,000 inmates in more
than 40 states and territories. The company also owns Keefe Group, which
supplies food and personal care items to the corrections industry, and
Courtesy Products, which provides coffee service to hotels and motels. An
email to the company seeking comment for this article was not immediately
returned.
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