Michigan Hopes For Less Turmoil With New Prison Food Contract
LANSING (WWJ/AP) - The director of the Michigan Department of Corrections is hoping for less turmoil as a three-year, $158 million prison food contract makes a Florida-based company the new meal supplier for about 43,000 state inmates.
The contract was approved in July after Gov. Rick Snyder announced that Michigan and Aramark Correctional Services had mutually agreed to end their troubled three-year, $145 million contract early. Trinity Services Group of Oldsmar, Florida, is the new vendor.
Heidi Washington, a former warden who became director of the Department of Corrections this summer, told the Detroit Free Press that she expects the "custody staff will be performing their normal custody functions within the kitchens, and leaving the kitchen operations to Trinity."
Philadelphia-based Aramark and the state cut ties after company-initiated talks about a possible billing increase and other issues. Michigan fined Aramark $200,000 last year for unapproved menu substitutions, worker misconduct and other issues.
Washington said Trinity has taken on large numbers of former Aramark workers, but it has retrained them all in Trinity methods, she said.
"So far, everything is going well," she said. "They have more supervision, and it is present on site."
Andy Potter, chief of staff and executive vice president of the Michigan Corrections Organization, the union representing corrections officers at facilities where Trinity will be serving meals, said he's hoping for an improvement but has seen no signs of that yet.
Trinity spokesman Mark Dennis said last week "the transition is going well and we are still in the midst of getting all the units transitioned from Aramark to Trinity." Dennis said Trinity has "retained many of the Aramark employees that have met our hiring requirements."
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