05212002 - News Article - The politics of the bidding process - The issue: Health care for jailed inmates

The politics of the bidding process
The issue: Health care for jailed inmates
NWI Times
May 21, 2002
nwitimes.com/uncategorized/the-politics-of-the-bidding-process/article_fa457167-1fa9-56b8-a746-77f4d5e1966.html
Our opinion: Lake County commissioners are to be commended for seeking bids on health services for the jail inmates. They must keep a wary eye on the process so politics doesn't get in the way.

It should be a no-brainer that providing health care for inmates at the Lake County Jail should be awarded through a competitive bidding process. And the county commissioners are doing just that -- opening the health services contracts to bidding. That is prudent policy when public money is at stake.

However, because it is Lake County, the political machinations are already in play and could negate that prudence, giving new meaning to the term "award."

The Southlake Center for Mental Health in Merrillville has been providing health care for jail inmates for 20 years. Now, it seems requests from competing agencies prompted the commissioners to open to bidding that lucrative service -- currently about $1.6 million a year.

Political insiders, it seems, are behind some of those competing agencies. That should be cause for caution on the part of the county commissioners.

For example, Robert Cantrell, East Chicago's chairman of that city's nominal Republican Party, and Lee Christakis, a Merrillville lawyer, hope to profit, according to a story by Times reporter Bill Dolan in Sunday's paper.

Cantrell lobbied commissioners on behalf of Nancy Fromm, who runs Addiction and Family Services as an unpaid consultant.

"He will get paid if we get (the contract)," she said.

Even more egregious is the rationale from Christakis for his lobbying efforts. He said he urged Prison Health Services of Nashville to bid on the contract with the hope it would generate business for his wife's temp service, Nur-Staff Inc. of Merrillville. He also said he tried to get Southlake, the current health care provider, to use his wife's business in the county jail.

But, he said, Southlake "used us for 15 to 20 shifts, but that was all. So I started telling PHS (the Nashville firm), 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."

What audacity. Shame on him.

Yes, the commissioners are to be commended for seeking bids on health services for the jail inmates. They must be diligent in vetting those bids, however.

Commissioner Frances DuPey, D-Hammond, says she is keeping a wary eye on this entire process. Good -- a wary, careful, open eyes is necessary here. After all, this is Lake County we're talking about.