Delco moves forward with prison deprivatization
The Delaware County Jail Oversight Board continues to move forward in its efforts of deprivatization as discussions about staffing and other issues arose.
Tuesday’s meeting spanned a variety of issues on the topic from staffing issues to consultant compensation to the comparison of services to the humanity of people inside the George W. Hill Correctional Facility.
Action was taken as the board unanimously voted to create a request for proposals for medical, food services, maintenance and information services at the prison.
“I think it’s important in the decision-making process,” county Executive Director Howard Lazarus said. “It helps break the chicken-and-egg argument in terms of how do we know what’s going to be the cost.”
Questions arose associated with the potential of outsourcing those services, which is possible under the current contract with operator GEO Group Inc.
“Parsing it out amongst four companies, that’s a better route than the single (provider)?,” Jail Oversight Board member Deborah Love asked. “I don’t know that answer.”
Kevin Madden,
chairman of the Jail Oversight Board and county councilman, noted the expenses incurred in 2018 with the renewal of the GEO contract.
“I think $1 million to renew a contract is an exorbitant, exorbitant amount of money,” he said. “I’d never seen a contract cost $1 million to be renewed in the public sector or the private sector.”
Majid Alsayegh, principal of Alta Management LLC, which is serving as the owner’s representative in the transition, explained that 66 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties outsource these services.
“This is the logical next step to find out what is in the marketplace, what does it look like and how does it fit into our plan,” board member and county Controller Joanne Phillips added.
Some board members also inquired about the staffing situation, particularly in light of the scenarios presented in the CGL study released earlier this month that show reductions of up to 68 positions.
Alsayegh explained that the prison is operating at an 85 percent staffing capacity with 50 to 60 positions open, adding that part of the way that is handled is that people are being forced to remain in their cells and not get out for exercise.
Madden added that double shifts are also being forced on correctional officers.
Regarding the potential for reduced staffing, board member and count Court of Common Pleas Judge Mary Alice Brennan said, “For the past year, I’ve heard that’s too low, too low and now that’s too high, correct?”
Alsayegh responded, “I said it would be staffed appropriately given best practices for comparable prisons.”
Brennan also noted the costs associated with the deprivatization effort with county council having approved $385,000 for CGL Companies in December and at the last meeting, council increased the contract with Alta Management from $25,000 to $303,749 for owner representation in the second and third phases of deprivatization.
As these discussions continued, Jail Oversight Board member Jonathan Rahim King asked that the board not lose sight on the people impacted by these decisions.
“I know that money plays a role in almost everything we do out here in the world,” he said. “I’m just thinking about it from a human perspective, right? Because people who are in prison, they are human, right? When we’re talking about money, I just hear this conversation about saving money here, saving
money there. For the last 20 years, not too many people cared about how much money GEO was making off the back of people who are incarcerated.”
King said he understood the need for fiscal responsibility but didn’t want humanity to get lost.
“I just would like the public to know that they’re human beings that’s inside there and if you have to be there, let’s treat them like human beings and decent and have them to be decent as well,” he said. “I just don’t want people to lose focus to make it seem like that we’ve got cattle inside of the prison.”
Madden said it shouldn’t be an either-or scenario.
“If we collectively are successful in reducing recidivism and helping people to get their feet back under them, we will save
money, the taxpayer will save money so these are not two separate things,” he said.”It’s not you either have to go into this with a big heart or a concern about your pocketbook. They really are two sides of the same coin.”
Separately, GEO sent the board a request to allow them to publicly present their perspective on the costs and expertise to run the jail. GEO did not present at Tuesday’s JOB meeting.
“We also want to make it clear that we do not dispute the county’s legal authority to terminate the contract with six-month’s notice, but we do dispute CGL’s flawed and misleading analysis and the implications that the facility is poorly managed,” John Oliver, GEO interim vice president, wrote, with a 19-page attachment contesting the
CGL findings.
A five-page letter from GEO and a 9-page response from CGL and Alta have been uploaded to the county’s website and are part of the record for the special April 1 meeting.
In April 2019, the Phoenix Management comparative analysis of private and public prison operations, which said the county saves $1.5 million annually through the public-private model, came under much criticism. It was supposed to be completed prior to the December 2018 contract renewal with GEO, but came months later and GEO itself was criticized by Phoenix for its refusal to provide critical information, severely impairing its ability to do the cost analysis. GEO had stated that the information Phoenix was seeking was proprietary.