Clancy Takes On Jail Food Monopoly

The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors is putting the county on a path to deprivatizing the food and commissary services in the newly-named Community Reintegration Center (CRC), formerly known as the House of Correction, and, potentially, reducing costs for inmates.

Sup. Ryan Clancy sought to stall approval of a contract extension for Aramark Correctional Services, a subsidiary of Aramark Corporation, that provides both food and commissary services. He managed to gain board support for an amendment that sets the table for the board to rethink and potentially change the way the county feeds people incarcerated at the CRC and the Milwaukee County Jail.

He went before the board’s Finance Committee this month and implored his colleagues not to approve two contract renewals for Aramark covering food services and commissary in the CRC. The commissary is where inmates can purchase additional food and hygiene products, and Clancy said that they are regularly charged up to 400% more than the retail price of these goods.

But officials from the CRC told supervisors that if the two contracts before them — for food services and commissary — were not approved, there would be no food service or commissary in 2023.

When the full county board held its monthly meeting a week later, Clancy sought a compromise in order to nudge the board a bit further along the path of dispensing with Aramark altogether. The county’s procurement division is already working on a request for proposals for bringing food services in-house. Clancy voted for the extension noting that the board was not in a realistic position to vote down the contract.

Sup. Sequanna Taylor similarly asked her colleagues to give careful consideration to the contract and other options for food services, otherwise the board will “continue to extend them for one year, and another year.”

He voted for the 12-month extension of the food services contract. Next, he introduced an amendment he authored that asked his colleagues to amend the commissary contract, only offering a four-month extension.

“This has gone on too long,” Clancy said. “The existence of a monopoly at the CRC and jail means that Aramark, which is a private company has a vested interest in serving food which is so inedible and so terrible that they increase sales at the commissary.”

But Milwaukee County Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun said the exact structure of Clancy’s proposal wasn’t legal. Then offered a potential workaround.

“​​The amendment, as it currently stands includes something that the county board is not permitted to do, and that is to change the term of the agreement,” said Daun. The board can only approve or deny contracts proposed by the county administration, it cannot “effectively line-item” the contract.

The contract already has a clause that allows the county to terminate the contract as long as it provides a 30-day heads-up to Aramark. Daun proffered a solution, which was that an additional clause could be added to the board’s legislation approving the contract which asks the county to develop cost estimates for bringing the commissary in-house.

Clancy drafted a substitute amendment on the board floor that called on the CRC and the Milwaukee County Sheriff‘s Office to “as soon as practical develop a plan and budget” for bringing commissary services in-house by May 2023.

“I hope that wherever you sit on one side of the aisle or another, we can agree that monopolies are bad,” Clancy said. “They’re terrible for the people in our care; they’re terrible for their families; they’re terrible for the county; the only people they’re good for is Aramark shareholders.”

Clancy told his colleagues that the board didn’t need to make a decision now if bringing the commissary in-house was the right thing to do, or if the county should simply seek another contractor. The supervisor said he thought the board needed to at least consider the issue.

“We have been failing in our basic duty to provide decent adequate food at our institutions for a while,” Clancy said. “And this is another way to look at that and to try to do the right thing.”