Jail contracts attract politically connected bidders
County officials think it may be time for a change in health care providers for inmates
NWI Times
May 19, 2002
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CROWN POINT -- After providing 20 years of health care for inmates at the Lake County Jail, Southlake Center for Mental Health in Merrillville may face competition. County commissioners, responding to requests from competing agencies, have decided to open up the health service contracts to bidding.
The 57-bed medical facility at 93rd Avenue and Main Street doesn't put its clientele on the cutting edge of health care technology, but it provides basic health care to a captive audience.
Thousands of men and women awaiting trial on criminal charges have been treated for physical and mental ailments by the medical staff on the fourth floor of the Lake County Jail since it opened two decades ago. The current cost of treatment is about $1.6 million a year.
Southlake Center is only one of three providers of health care to jails in the state to win accreditation from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. Still, county commissioners have decided to consider competing bids.
The process could be fraught with legal difficulties for the county, however, which has lived under the threat of federal penalties since the 1980s when health services in the lockup dropped to dangerous levels for inmates. U.S. District Court judges in Hammond took over the jail's operation and installed Southlake to bring health care up to acceptable standards.
Local officials regained control over the jail in 1997 when federal Judge Rudy Lozano lifted the mandate, but commissioners have been wary about making changes.
Political ties
Three agencies have responded with interest to the commissioners' decision to open the contracts again. They are Addiction and Family Services, a Hammond drug and alcohol counseling service; Edgewater Systems for Balanced Living in Gary; and Prison Health Services, a Nashville-based firm servicing 400 jails and prisons across the country.
Political insiders Bobby Cantrell, East Chicago Republican chairman, and Lee Christakis, a Merrillville lawyer, also hope to profit from the initiative.
Cantrell and Christakis recently urged commissioners to end Southlake's monopoly.
Nancy Fromm, who runs Addiction and Family Services, said Cantrell lobbied commissioners on her behalf as an unpaid consultant.
"He will get paid if we get (the contract)," she said.
Cantrell couldn't be reached for comment.
Fromm said, "It's just been given to Southlake, and every year (the cost) has increased."
Commissioners recently advertised two contracts. The first is to provide medical, dental, dietary and mental health services for the County Jail, which will have an inmate population of more than 850 next month when the Gary City Jail transfers its residents here.
Lee Strawhun, president of Southlake, said his center has provided quality health services and has bid to continue doing so.
No spokesman for Edgewater, formerly known as Gary Community Mental Health Center, could be reached for comment.
The second contract would provide alcohol and drug abuse rehabilitation for inmates. Fromm bid to do the drug contract for $200,000. Southlake, which has provided only minimal substance abuse counseling, is not bidding on that contract.
Commissioners chose to step back last week and hold a pre-bid meeting with potential vendors Wednesday to clarify what standards must be met to win the contracts. That may give Nashville's Prison Health Services an opportunity to join the contest, Merrillville lawyer Christakis said.
Christakis said he urged Prison Health Service to bid on the contract in the hopes of getting some business for his wife's temp service, Nur-Staff Inc. of Merrillville.
He said Prison Health Services, which services all Indiana state prisons, has contracted with his wife in the past to provide temporary health care workers for the Westville Correctional Center in LaPorte County.
"I don't think U.S. Judge Rudy Lozano ever intended to close off the County Jail contract to everyone else, including minority vendors," Christakis said.
He said he also tried to get Southlake to use his wife's temp service in the County Jail.
"Strawhun used us for 15 to 20 shifts, but that was all. So I started telling PHS why don't you guys bid the jail contract? I'm hoping if (Prison Health Services) gets it, they will remember me for temp service."
A spokesman for Prison Health Services said last week the firm is looking at the County Jail but has made no decision on whether to bid on the contract.
Strawhun said he doesn't oppose competing with others for the jail contract.
"It is prudent public administration to periodically bid these contracts," he said. "That is hard to argue with."
Southlake's current contract
Southlake's Strawhun said the contract was put up for bid about six years ago.
"We were not the low bidder. The other firms were national for-profit entities, and they were remarkably lower. However, one of the firms said they would provide 24-hour medical coverage through a 1-800 number where they would have a medical doctor in another state who would respond."
He said Ivan Bodensteiner, who represented inmates in the court mandate over the jail, put the county on notice he would seek court sanctions if health care services declined.
"They sent the contract out a second time with modification, and we were the second-lowest bidder, but only modestly so. They decided to continue the contract with us.
"Faces changed again and institutional memories were lost, and there has been this call again. What is prompting it is that commissioners received advice unsolicited from the Fromm group," Strawhun said.
Fromm said her firm has provided substance abuse counseling to Lake Superior Court, County Division, and several city courts. For a time she was serving County Jail inmates, serving short sentences for minor crimes, at County Sheriff John Buncich's adjacent work-release center.
Fromm said, "I had the work-release (service contract). I approached John Buncich and worked for a year, basically free. If they could pay $5 they did, and if they couldn't, they didn't have to.
"Then we went to the commissioners about three or four years ago in 1997, and we said, 'Can you pay for these guys?' They did, but then politics happened and we got thrown out, and Wayne Isailovich (partner and counselor at Addiction and Behavioral Counseling Services in Merrillville) got put in."
Buncich couldn't be reached for comment. Isailovich confirmed his company serves the work-release center. He declined to address Fromm's comments.
Strawhun said he is skeptical about claims the bidding process will produce significant savings.
"I could cut expenses, but actually meeting internal criteria and national standards, I don't know how anybody could do it for much less than we are doing it," he said.
He said other firms could win a contract with a low bid and then come back asking for more money at a later date, eating up any savings taxpayers might have gained.
"I know $1.6 million is a ton of money, but if you go back over the last three to five years in which there were no increases, the county has not lost a lawsuit and they have been able to maintain their accreditation," Strawhun said.
He added he is concerned the County Jail could lose its accreditation, which is up for renewal this summer, if health care declines in the name of cutting costs.
County Commissioner Frances DuPey, D-Hammond, said she is keeping a wary eye on the process.
"I want to see an actual spec developed so that other people can bid on it," she said. "I think this is something commissioners have to be very, very cautious about."
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