Ohio should open food contract for inmates to competitive bids

The case against Philadelphia- based Aramark, a vendor that provides food services to more than 600 correctional facilities in North America, runs longer than the rap sheets of many of the prisoners it feeds. That’s one reason that we find it puzzling and unsettling that Ohio has quietly agreed to extend its contract to serve more than 51,000 inmates at its network of prisons, including the 2,000 housed at the Ohio State Penitentiary and Trumbull Correctional Institution in the Mahoning Valley.

Considering Aramark’s less-than-stellar track record and considering the state’s failure to at least give competitors a fighting chance at the lucrative contract, officials should act ethically, responsibly and transparently by rethinking their preliminary decision and post the prison-food contract for competitive bidding.

Sadly, the state Department of Correction and Rehabilitation and the Department of Administrative Services are not legally bound to do so. A clause in Aramark’s two-year contract adopted in 2013 included a provision allowing the extension of the pact without competitive bidding once it expires this June 30.

Aramark received the $110 million, two-year contract in 2013 as part of a state cost-cutting move that so far has saved $13.3 million, state officials say, adding that savings in the new contract are estimated at about $16 million.

Clearly, cost savings to Ohio taxpayers must be one major determinant in choosing the best food-service provider to state prisoners. It must not, however, serve as the sole criterion. Quality of services rendered must also rank high. In that department, Aramark has repeatedly demonstrated in Ohio and elsewhere a litany of subpar service, irregularities and out-and-out failures.

MAGGOTS IN KITCHENS

In Ohio, for example, who can forget the headlines last summer of maggots in prison kitchens, staffing and food shortages and inappropriate personal contact between prisoners and Aramark staff? In the end, Ohio fined the company $272,000 for those and other violations.

Elsewhere, Aramark’s record has been troubling as well. Consider:

In Michigan, maggots also have been found in food prep areas and near inmates’ food, employees have been caught engaging in sex acts with prisoners and employees have smuggled heroin, cocaine and marijuana to prisoners.

In Kansas, nearly 340 inspections have shown noncompliance and deficiencies month after month after month at several correctional facilities.

In Arkansas, the former University of Central Arkansas president resigned after revelations that Aramark gave him $700,000 to renovate his home. That so-called gift, however, was contingent upon renewal of Aramark’s university food contract for seven years.

Amid the current controversy, history also may be instructive. A 2001 audit by then-Ohio Auditor Jim Petro found a verbal amendment to Aramark’s two-year Ohio prison contract led the state prisons department to pay Aramark for serving almost 4.5 million meals rather than the 2.8 million meals it actually served. As a result, the contract was not renewed.

Yet despite its longstanding list of deficiencies, perhaps Aramark has shown dramatic improvements in recent months, as state officials argue. If that is indeed the case, then Aramark should have no qualms about rebidding for the contract. If it is the lowest and best bid for the state’s penal system, let it be renewed.

At the very least, however, corrections and administrative services leaders owe it to Ohio’s taxpayers to ensure that high standards of ethical transactions, transparent policymaking and fair treatment to prisoners are not held captive by political expediency.