Travis County Commssioners Court
April 15, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 26
We still need to take up item number 26, discuss and take appropriate action on rfs s 020141-rv, outsourcing food services for Travis County correctional facilities.
>> judge, can I ask a technical question. We've got about an hour and five minutes before we hit the traditional break. Can we give people a heads up as to what we can accomplish in the next hour so they're not sitting here thinking we're going to get to them, like 1445 before lunch. I don't think we're going to get to 1445.
>> i'd be real surprised. I think on frowrn 45, if you have lunch plans it's probably a good idea to return about 1:30 would be a good time. We are moving as fast as we can.
>> judge, Commissioners, cyd grimes, Travis County purchasing agent. We are here to ask the court to authorize us to enter into negotiations with the two firms that we feel have the best chance for being awarded a contract. Those two firms are air mark and canteen. We did receive six responses back in November on this solicitation. One of the vendors dropped out because they went out of business during this period. We had an evaluation committee made up of members from pbo, tnr, the auditors office, human services and the sheriff's office and we are ready to move forward with negotiations. The sheriff is here to give you just a brief overview of where we are on this project.
>> Commissioners, judge, margo frasier, Travis County sheriff. Has part of our continuing efforts to save money, we made a decision to look at the outsourcing of food services and see whether or not there were any significant savings that could be reaped there. If you were around when we outsourced our food service before or perhaps didn't see it on the news, our previous effort was not successful. Our main problems were the quality of food. Quite frankly, there are only so many ways you can eat soy products. [ laughter ] and the staff, they were not experienced -- the staff that were provided by the vendor were not experienced in corrections, and to be honest with you, I think deion bailey would tell you they spent more time watching the staff than they did the inmates. So the sheriff's office took it back over. What we do now is we purchase our own food and supplies, which we have a population of around 2200, which we are right now, it's about $1.4 million a year. And then we cook the food with inmates and we have staff that are -- have training as food service folks. Often these are all officers, but often they are officers who have had prior food service experience in a prior job. Some of them have experience from the military. So we have actually over 300 trustees, inmates that work in our food service and are sprpsed by 22 corrections officers, one agent, half a lieutenant and half a clerk, who is the person who is responsible for all the ordering, which is about $1.1 million. Our configuration for food service is not the best, particularly out at del valle because of the fact that we have the multiple buildings. What we have is we cook the food in the main kitchen. We used to have quite a few kitchens out there, but the court a few years ago as part of building our infrastructure built us a new main kitchen, which is a very modern and good kitchen. We cook the food if there, we then put the food in warmers, put it in to vans and have to literally drive it to buildings, at which point we then serve the trays to the inmates in their housing areas. Pcj and the kitchen truck, the kitchen is in the basement of the building, they bring the food up on the elevators and distribute it to the units. The only place where the inmates actually go to a dining room is over what we call our activities area over in the middle of the security area, and we cook the food over there in that kitchen and the inmates actually come through kind of a traditional sort of challenge. So quite frankly, it's a staff intensive way of doing food service, but it has to do with the fact of our multiple buildings out there. And then we have to take the trays back up and take them to the kitchen and obviously wash them and sanitize them. We tried to look at some alternatives and look at our way and see how we could possibly do it cheaper. We have actually already -- with the population going down, we reassigned two corrections officers from the kitchen area to help eliminate overtime. In other parts of the facility. And we looked at it and we figured that we really could possibly trim two more positions. We could also probably look at whether we wanted to try and hire our own cooks as opposed to corrections officers through some positions, although we have found it to be more successful when the person wear those two hats. In reality they have to have some training according to jail standards because they're supervising inmates. But we did look at perhaps having outsourcing and have a private vendor come in and have kind of good news, bad news. The good news is that going through it this process shows that we were extremely efficient in the way that we did it within the efficient's office. The bad news that has to do with that is that while we hoped that -- some folks had hoped there would be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, what we found was not much savings to be had. In reality the savings, based on our current population, is somewhere, assuming things stay constant during the contract negotiation process, somewhere between about $100,000, up to maybe $165,000. So it's not -- there's a savings to be had, but it's not a tremendous amount. Roughly four to six percent. The way that the prior contractors work, the main thing is quite frankly, in salaries, they use cooks and folks instead of -- hopefully folks with correctional experience, but instead of corrections officers that are paid less. And they are some councilmember alvarez of scale that they can get in food purchases and supplies, although our people do extremely well in conjunction with said's sid's office. There would still need to be, because of the security aspect of things, there would still need to be 10 corrections officers, one sergeant and half after lieutenant's time is assigned to the operation and the monitoring of the contract. I would tell the court that the most important I think I would like to share with you is that although I am certainly willing to go through this process and hopefully turn out with something that would save some money for the county and provide a good product, we have to have an extremely tight, tight contract. The contract negotiation is very important otherwise what you wind up with is inferior food service and very problematic contract staff. And some people might be saying I don't really care what the inmates is, but the reality is the inmates, the two most important things to them are food and visits because they don't have a whole lot else to look for. So you can create an extreme amount of problems if you don't have at least decent food. You can also create some real security issues. And unless you have a very tight contract you can wind up -- our estimates are based on the fact that we only have to devote 10 staff to this issue, 10 corrections officers to the one sergeant. And if we wind up having to use more staff then our savings will be eaten up very quickly. That was not a pun intended. And also the other part of it is that there is some loss of control as far as not being the ones who manage this. The other thing I would also point out to the court is that because our costs remain somewhat constant and we're paying on the basis, the savings is less and less oz the population increases, which we all hope will not happen, but I feel it's necessary to point out to the court that at about 2700 inmates the savings disappears, and and it actually becomes more expensive to out source than to have us do it. And the last thing I would say is that in this type of contract, I think performances sometimes performance is definitely more important than perhaps a penny or two.
>> sheriff, a quick question. If there's also not a solicit shifting of I guess i'll call it risk if you go to a private outsourcing, for some reason you do not find working in a jail to be exactly the most favorite place that they may want to work. We've had actually problems trying to attract people in certain kinds of positions, nursing. But if you go with an outsourcing, you basically shifting that responsibility for have those warm bodies no matter what deliver a product. And we don't have to worry about the economic times changing and all of a sudden people perhaps don't want to work in your food service capacity. And so we are shifting that responsibility to somebody else and basically saying make it happen. That's your job.
>> Commissioner, that is correct. The economy we're in right now, there's not a lot -- we have a great number of folks applying for jobs. But with that, though, is that you still -- in that situation you need to have your contract very tight as to how long people can have vacancies because if you assume, for example, in the reality is the model that we're looking at is it takes -- it will take a little more staff for them to out source it. If you combine the total numbers. And one has to assume that everybody that they're hiring has a job. And if they're not there, if they have a vacancy and somebody's not there to do that job, if they don't pick up that task, then we wind up picking up the task, which shifts the cost. But you're correct, there is some latitude to the fact that they're the ones that are responsibility for finding folks and keeping these folks. And if food costs change, they're also the ones that are going to bear the burden. Also, obviously if at some point it's not profitable to the vendor, one of the things that they would exercise their option to get out of the contract and then we would have to find ourselves kind of ramping back up to perform our own food service operation. But I feel comfortable we could do that if need be. Airngsd you bring up two important points in the contract. Like on e.m.s., You don't want somebody to have the able to say in 30 days we choose not to be a part of this and that then makes it very difficult for somebody to ramp up and start replacing. So we need to make sure that that's in there. And then related to the issue of if they don't do their job, it shifts to us. That's the equivalent on the engineering side of saying, liquidated damages in terms of if you shift costs back to us to pick up, there should be penalty clauses in the contract that say there's a certain amount of latitude here, but at some point if we're doing your job, we're not paying for this.
>> the contract aspects are difficult. There are some very -- I feel very comfortable with the folks that we're looking at negotiating with and there were some other extremely qualified folks who bid in bids that didn't make it because of the cost element. There are some folks who are very experienced at doing correctional food service that have come a long way since the last time we went through this process. So I?m hopeful with a tight contract this can be a successful venture.
>> yes, sir?
>> looking at the entire state as far as counties that are using out source contractors in particular areas, has there been any type of success with those particular private out outsourcing? Are there a certain number of outsourcing of those that have been doing this?
>> it's a real mixture as far as how many sheriff's office out source and how many do it in-house. And most of them -- what you hear nationally is not just in Texas because we're part of what's called the large jail network and this issue would have an internet list-serve sort of thing, and this discussion was on the computer a couple of month ago. And what everyone says is that the key is to have a good contract and to have a very competent person on your side watching it to be sure they're doing what they're doing and also a person from the vendor that's in there to administer the contract for them. That if those two folks really have their act together, then you have a successful experience. If you don't, you don't. It's probably 50-50. I mean, there are sheriff's offices that are so fall shaul that they have a freezer tull of tv -- frezer full of tv dinners and that's what you get three meals a day.
>> I was just concerned about the performance owe [ inaudible ] and of course the track record and also what is the outlook as far as what other counties are doing as what their success is and what they say about doing it. I really don't know.
>> well, sheriffs talk.
>> they do? [ laughter ]
>> we even talk to them and they talk to me! We talk and I have had some solicited comments and unsolicited comments with them as far as checking with them and as far as experiences that they've had. You know, for every -- i'd say for every three compliments you get you will get one negative comment about a vendor and it usually does that for whoever was the administrator they were on site. It's usually one of those sorts of issues. But I trust the fact that both of the folks that we are entering into discussions with and who Wednesday wind up with eventually, I trust the fact that they understand that we've had a prior, not so good experience and we're going to be really looking at them and expecting to do it right. And I think some of them are here and they could certainly speak for themselves, but there is a bit of a problem of having the contract of Travis County. It is the the state capitol and one of the -- quite frankly, one of the better run jail systems. So I think there's some pride in being able to secure this trt crt and keep this contracted. Getting a contract like this is not something that I think anybody would want to screw up.
>> thank you. The vendors that are recommended for negotiations, have they provided food service in a jail setting before?
>> yes, sir, they have.
>> and has part of our due diligence been to visit their other jails and test the quality or performance in food there?
>> you know, I haven't eent the food. I've been to some of the jail facilities that I know that one of them services. We have not actually done due diligence on both of them. That is something we could certainly look at doing.
>> we did get references.
>> we did get a lot of references.
>> six references.
>> anybody here on this item? Please come forward. And while you're coming forward, questions from the court.
>> I have one question. We're still working at keeping the population at what we are capable of holding?
>> yes, ma'am. We're working at keeping it below what we're capable of holding.
>> and our capacity is 2275?
>> that's our designed capacity of the facility.
>> is that the --
>> we have been really trying to -- kind of the number we had talked about with the court and seen at least a 300 reduction, actually, over 400 reduction, and so we're doing better than, quite frankly, some of us even dreamed we might do. So we had done very well, but it continues to be a joint effort of all the folks involved, and of in fact, I think there's e-mail that went out to you about the fact that the county court judges are going to -- [ inaudible ]. So we're really working hard at keeping that population number done down. And all of this is really based on the idea of being able to do that.
>> whenever something like this goes out on the description and the cite of criteria of how you use who does this -- I think this is a great opportunity for us and I think this is a time that we could have some great benefits to us. Who comes up with the description of the criteria? Is that you, is that purchasing or is that you in conjunction with -- obviously you probably want to sit down with the sheriff and her term and look at these things. The reason I ask that is because the three most important things, whether it's for food service or whatever it's for, that I will always look for is how long has the entity been in business, what is their financial wherewithal? And I think that these two -- the only thing that I would always look for is management and how long management has been there and what does it look like. And that's where you have to get the company to say -- with some key people leading in some companies, before you know it, the companies go the other direction. But that would be just a point of fyi for me. I think you've done a great job on this thing and looking over this thing, it's impressive. It's obvious they're two of the best. Thank you.
>> is there somebody here on this item, please come forward. We would be happy to get your brief comments.
>> good morning. My name patrick turner. I?m with earmark correctional services. Thanks for the time this morning. I would like to take a minute to introduce a couple of my team members that I brought with me that are sitting in the office. My district manager and responsible for all of our business in central nnd in south Texas. And my region general manager, who offices out of bexar county in san antonio. As you know by now, thanks to the sheriff and cyd, earmark is one of the companies that submitted a proposal to provide the food service for the inmate fooding program at the correctional facilities. Over the past couple of years we've spent a lot of time with the sheriff, her staff and people that run food service to try and understand the operational flas fi and understand the culture and how they do business and we think we've done a pretty good job of that. Our feeling is that there's nobody better that understands how to serve over 2,000 meals three times a day, every day of the week, all day long. We want to take a couple of minute to talk to you about earmark, our presence in the state of Texas and in Travis County. We have over 275,000 employees across the country operating in about seven different lines of business. We also were the food service provider for 12 out of the last 15 economic games and including the upcoming games in athens. Here in Texas we employ about 11,000 people and we do that through almost all of our lines of business. We operate in higher education, places like baylor, smu, continue try. We operate in 17 different hospitals around the state providing food service need for the likes of the hospital systems and both the university of Texas and Texas tech systems. We operate in sports arenas. If you've been to a game at minute made pork park or the alamodome, we've probably served you. We operate in 23 county facilities, include bexar county, montgomery county, lubbock, and probably we're in six of the juvenile facilities for the Texas youth commission. One of the things that we like to say here in Texas is that if you are fortunate enough to be born in this state and you went to either primary, secondary or higher education in this state, you went to a ballgame or were unfortunate enough to spend the night in one of the county's free hotels, we probably served you a mile there too. Locally in Travis County we employ 700 peel to the tune of about $700 million in payroll. We have have a regional office in san antonio, a region office in dallas and a region office in houston. One of the things I promised to my boss, dan jamesson, was that I really wasn't coming to Austin because this was my hometown, that I was born here and that I bleed orange in the biggest way. But what I did promise him to do today was to ask you for your business, for teement I have here in the room and for the team that we have across the state of state of Texas to ask you for your business. We've spent a lot of time cferg all the information and analyzing the information that was given to us by cyd's office and her team in the purchasing group. Yesterday I delivered to each one of you a packet that told you a little bit more about earmark. Inside that package was an award that we received a couple of weeks ago that was issued to us from fortune nag. What it was was for the second year in a row we were the country's most admired outsourcing company. Hand in hand with that we finished in the top 10 of the most admired companies by fortune magazine. I think we work very hard to rise above the rest of the people that are in this business. And I promise you that we'll work very hard for your loyalty and trust. Awords like this are few and far between and we are proud of that. But I think for myself and peement in the room with me and the people that work for earmark, we would be most proud to have the sunt tunt to serve you guys. We will work hard and look forward to serving you the first meal. Thank you.
>> thank you. Anybody else?
>> judge, I would like to make one other comment. The sheriff's office, currently when they buy food, they buy for gardner-betts. Part of our negotiation with these firms would be to allow us to get food at their cost at gardner-betts and make sure that we don't increase their costs as we try to lessen our costs. So that will be part of the contract negotiations.
>> [ inaudible ] ierjs not sure who john has assigned to write the contract?
>> purchasing and the sheriff's office, but I think it will now be my part.
>> good morning. My name is sue colbert and I?m with canteen correctional services. We are a division of compass group, north america, which is also one of the large food service contract companies here in the united states, with many divisions, very similar to air mark in that. I would just like to thank you for your consideration of the recommendation today. The sheriff's department and purchasing has been great to work with during this time. They've been very fair and equit I believe. We're prepared to move forward with negotiations and I agree wholeheartedly with what the sheriff tez sez on a contract, but I don't agree on the fact that you don't lose control. They are in control. We work with them together and only together would we be successful. So I appreciate your comments on that. We are here to meet tomorrow to talk about some of these issues and hopefully put forward our plan to fine tune this for the sheriff's department. We also have many employees here in Texas. We do lots of different business here and around the country. We employee over 140,000 people and we just welcome the opportunity and thank you for allowing us to be here today.
>> let me ask you a question and I need to ask the original person a question too. Both of you. And the question will be directed toward both of you when you answer. The question is: of course you know that unemployment is very rampant throughout the state and the nation. I guess in a lot of areas are in a recession, like here in traik. My concern is even though I hear you have a nationwide representation and the things that you've stated this morning I think are paramount as far as you providing a good service; however, I?m concerned about the employment situation here in Travis County. And persons that may be looking for a job and stuff like that. Would that be any type of effort -- in negotiating had and in the process and stuff like that, what kind of effort will each one uf make to hire persons locally within Travis County or is that something that you are considering?
>> well, of course, locally is where we want to hire people. We'll make every effort to do that.
>> not bring them in from another --
>> there may be people that work within the food service program right now that may want to stay in food service if they choose to go with the contractor and we'll give them every opportunity to join our team. We don't bring people in from all other parts of the country except for during a transition to help with training. But we always hire locally.
>> okay. I wanted to hear you say that because sometimes persons end upbringing other people from other places and transferring them in and having the opportunity for local persons to have employment. And I guess I like to hear your statement on that, sir.
>> thank you. I think it's important that you know right off the bat that we've already begun the process of interviewing for all of our hourly staff here locally and through our people at st. Edward's and also through our people at the university of Texas. Given that we have so many people in and around Travis County, we've got to steal from another institution, we have a huge contingent of the 12th man here. So we have a huge support mechanism here. We have a lot of people in the county of travis to pull from, but yeah be, to answer your question, with the exception of our two managers, we will hire everybody locally. And our feeling about that is this, is that if you decide to buy arrow mark product, you want to buy that product and that manager rather than us conducting job fares and bringing in people to possibly hire to run this litany of things that we have to do without a lot of experience. So we've already earmarked two people to bring in to do that for you. But i'll tell you right now up that neither one of those two people are local.
>> that's the reason that I move approval of staff recommendation to negotiate with the two companies, arrow mark and canteen. Any more discussion? Thanks for coming down. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much.
>> okay. About 15 percent -- [inaudible - no mic] you asked that question about how many. There are about 3500 counties I think in the united states. About 15% use contracts.
>> okay. Thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 9, 2003 3:52 PM