Board Approves New Correctional Food Contract

Milwaukee County Jail. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors approved a new contractor for food provision in the county’s correctional facilities.

The new provider will be Florida-based Trinity Services Group. It will provide meal and commissary services, which includes snacks and hygiene products for sale — in the Milwaukee County Jail, the Community Reintegration Center (CRC) and the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center.

Supervisors approved the contract on a 13-5 vote, with some supervisors dissenting and arguing that the county should end privatization of these services and that public employees should be providing meal and commissary services.

The value of the contract comes to approximately $6.2 million a year with increases over time for a total of $34.5 million over five years.

Trinity will replace Aramark Correctional Services, a subsidiary of Aramark Corporation, in the county’s correctional facilities. Aramark has often been criticized, and even sued, over the quality of the food it serves. This spring, Aramark negotiated an 8% price hike to its contract with the county, citing rising food costs.

Trinity had the lowest per-meal bid and plans to offer a new program for the provision of religious meals, said Tony MacLellan, the contracts manager for the county.

“We are paying closer attention to temperature; we’re paying closer attention to palatability; we’re paying closer attention to making sure the nutritional analysis is complete” for food served, MacLellan told the board’s Committee on Finance.

Supervisors Ryan Clancy and Juan Miguel Martinez both spoke against the new contract with Trinity, saying the county should instead be working to bring food and commissary services in-house. “Moving these in-house, however we can, really would be the step to take,” Martinez said.

“I hope that in the new year, we will take seriously the idea of not just breaking up a monopoly by giving contracts to private vendors, but to actually do this well and to provide better service for the folks that we incarcerate in Milwaukee,” Clancy said.

Clancy has long railed against what he sees as a monopoly on food and commissary in the county’s correctional facilities, with one company controlling both. He has argued that this does not incentivize the company to provide healthy, appetizing free meals, because inmates can purchase other food at a premium from them at the commissary.

Sup. Willie Johnson, Jr. urged his colleagues to vote for the contract, noting that it will take considerable time and funding to begin a transition to public food service and commissary, and that such a proposal was not before the board.

County officials working in procurement and correctional institutions did develop a high-level estimate for bringing just commissary services in-house. Though officials urged supervisors to adequately fund such a transition, should they want one. Losing revenue on a transition to an in-house commissary would reduce the budget for other services provided in these institutions, officials reported at the time.

No action has been taken by the board to fund such a transition.

Supervisors Clancy, Martinez, Caroline Gómez-Tom, Steven Shea and Priscilla E. Coggs Jones voted against the contract.