County Hikes Funding For Jail Contractor

Milwaukee County Jail. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Last week Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley signed off on an increase to the county’s contract with the health care provider working in county correctional facilities.

Wellpath LLC provides health care and mental health services to the populations at the Milwaukee County Jail and the Community Reintegration Center.

The Milwaukee County Board voted to retroactively increase the contract with Wellpath by $1 million annually, beginning in April 2024 and running through the life of its contract that ends in 2026. The private correctional health care company initially sought the contract increase that year, citing the escalating labor costs occurring across the health care industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, it wasn’t just labor straining the financial health of Wellpath. The firm recently declared bankruptcy in an attempt to restructure more than $500 million in debt. The firm cited more than $110 million in legal settlements related to its operations in correctional facilities across the county.

Wellpath, owned by private equity firm H.I.G. Capital, is one of the largest correctional health care providers in the country. It took over medical and mental health care in the county jail and the Community Reintegration Center in 2019, replacing Armor Correctional Health Services.

The county initially contracted with Wellpath in 2019 for approximately $39.7 million over two years. In 2021, county policymakers agreed to a five-year, $109.2 million contract extension running until March 31, 2026.

WellPath has assured county policymakers that the firm’s financial restructuring will not affect day-to-day service. But at the same time it is asking for more money in its contract, suggesting that without additional funding the service provided to the county could decline.

“Wellpath has articulated the urgency,” Chantell Jewell, CRC superintendent told supervisors on the board’s Committee on Finance during a meeting on Dec. 12. The issues it faces include offering salary hikes to help retain staff. “I believe they have already — from their own pockets — increased some of these salary increases. So if they’re not able to maintain the increase, there’s a potential loss of staff and obviously translates to care for the people in our facilities.”

Jewell was answering a question from Sup. Shawn Rolland who wanted to know what would happen if the board didn’t approve the contract increase. The supervisor followed up, questioning how Wellpath could reduce staffing, wondering whether the contract required specific staffing levels or not. It does and Welllpath pays penalties when it doesn’t meet the staffing requirements. Jewell told Rolland the funding was aimed at “retention and turnover.”

Rolland also questioned whether it made sense to increase the funding for Wellpath mid-contract instead of simply soliciting a new contractor, especially given the company’s recent bankruptcy filing.

The whole event should prompt the board to give the next jail health care contract greater scrutiny, said Sup. Justin Bielinski.

“If you get a contract for any service, you don’t expect that that contract’s gonna change in the middle without increasing the level of service” he said.

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