Union to challenge prison food deal
AFSCME says Michigan should have called for new bids when it ended deal with Aramark.
Union to challenge prison food deal AFSCME says Michigan should have called for new bids when it ended deal with Aramark. Check out this story on Freep.com: http://on.freep.com/1Mrqzoi
Michigan Published 10:33 a.m. ET July 14, 2015 | Updated 5:41 p.m. ET July 14, 2015
Prisoners supervised by Aramark serve inmates at a Jackson-area prison(Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)
A union representing state employees is challenging the State of Michigan's decision to take the prison food contract away from one private company and give the contract to a second company without first calling for bids.
The state announced Monday it was ending its problem-plagued relationship with Aramark Correctional Services of Philadelphia and will sign a new contract with Trinity Services Group of Florida, which was the second-lowest bidder when Aramark was awarded the prison food contract in 2013.
Michigan AFSCME Council 25 said today it will challenge as unlawful the $158-million three-year deal with Trinity, which would replace a $145-million, three-year contract with Aramark.
The union voiced its concerns today before the State Administrative Board in Lansing, which approves most significant state contracts and OK'd the deal with Trinity.
"The reason why government has an open bid process is to insure the public is getting the lowest price and best value for the services provided," Ed McNeil, special assistant to the president of Michigan AFSCME Council 25, said in a news release.
"Changing vendors two years after the open bid was first awarded without going back to the marketplace is bad business because it cheats the public out of the benefit of competitive pricing."
Caleb Buhs, a spokesman for the Department of Technology, Management and Budget, said the state is complying with "the spirit and the letter of the law."
"The contract "was competitively bid, and we're going with the second-place vendor," he said.
Greg Bowens, a spokesman for AFSCME, wouldn't say whether the union is planning a court challenge, but said the union "is pursuing every means available to protect the pubic trust and the state's working families."
The Free Press, using Michigan's Freedom of Information Act, has documented a litany of problems since Philadelphia-based Aramark took over the contract in December 2013, replacing 370 state employees represented by AFSCME. Issues have ranged from meal shortages, to maggots in the kitchen, to smuggling of drugs and other contraband by Aramark employees, to Aramark workers engaging in sex acts with prisoners.
The Free Press reported Monday that Trinity has also been the subject of complaints about rodents and inadequate meals at jails and prisons in other states.
"Aramark has a poor track record of service and Trinity won't be any better," McNeil said. "We have laws governing contracting and we intend to use every means available to make sure the public is not cheated out of their money."
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.
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