By Paul Egan
Detroit Free Press
LANSING — Lawmakers are split on bipartisan legislation — prompted by reports of maggots and other sanitation issues under former food contractor Aramark Correctional Services — that would require local health departments to inspect prison kitchens regularly.
The Michigan Department of Corrections is neutral on the legislation, but an official warned lawmakers the state would likely have to pick up the cost of the inspections since they are not provided for in the contract with Trinity Services Group, which replaced Aramark this month.
House Bills 4748 and 4749, sponsored by Rep. John Kivela, D-Marquette, and Rep. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, would make prison kitchens subject to health inspections, just as restaurants and most other food facilities are.
McBroom said the kitchens were exempted from the state food law in the 1970s because state workers supervised prison kitchens and the inspections were considered redundant. But since prison food services were privatized in 2013, it’s time to revisit the issue, McBroom said. He has discussed the proposal with Trinity officials, and “they’ve not presented us with a lot of angst over this,” he said.
The Free Press wrote a series of articles about a litany of problems under Michigan’s first prison food contractor, Philadelphia-based Aramark, including maggots found in or around food and other sanitation issues. The state cited disagreement over billing issues when it canceled Aramark’s three-year, $145-million contract more than a year early and shifted the work to Trinity, based in Florida, which was the second-lowest bidder.
Proponents of the legislation told the House Oversight and Ethics Committee on Thursday that it just makes sense to have an independent third party checking on the private food contractor. They noted that not just prisoners, but some prison staff members, eat the food. And they noted the cost and other liability issues the state could face if a food-borne illness causes widespread sickness inside one of the 33 prisons served by the contract.
“I’m excited about these bills,” said Rep. Rose Mary Robinson, D-Detroit. Human dignity requires that the state serve inmates food that is clean and safe, and the legislation “shows we have empathy for those who are in prison,” Robinson said.
But Rep. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, expressed concern about changing requirements after a contract is signed and wondered whether the inspections could not be introduced for the next prison food contract instead.
Rep. Joseph Graves, R-Linden, said quality control should be built into the process, and that requiring inspections is a step backward. “The corporate world would laugh at this,” Graves said.
Kyle Kaminski, legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Corrections, told the committee the department is neutral on the issue, though it’s confident in the present process, under which the contractor is responsible for self-inspections and is checked by eight contract monitors employed by the state.
Though the legislation puts the cost of the inspections on the contractor, the department said it would have to pick up the cost because it isn’t provided for in the three-year, $158.8-million deal with Trinity, Kaminski said.
McBroom, the committee chairman, said he wants to clarify the issue of who pays for the inspections before calling for a vote on the bills.
Nick Derusha, director of the Luce-Mackinac-Alger-Schoolcraft District Health Department, testified that “food safety is a very important issue,” and said his department would have no trouble adding inspections for prisons in the district. The cost of twice-yearly inspections can range from $200 to $600 per year, depending on the size of the facility, he said.