MANSFIELD — A rising Richland County Jail population and increased food costs will again mean additional expense for local taxpayers.
County commissioners on Thursday approved a new contract with Trinity Services Group, a Florida-based company, a deal for one year with the potential for three, one-year renewals.
The company, which has supplied meal services to the 234-bed jail for the last several years, received an 8 percent increase over 2023 prices, which had been an 8.6 percent increase over 2022.
It averages about $2.02 per meal for 701 to 750 meals per day, according to Richland County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Chris Blunk, the jail administrator.
The 2024 budget for jail meals is $596,000, which Blunk said he believed would be achievable. That’s up from requests of $567,000 in 2023 and $540,000 in 2022.
Inmates each receive a cold breakfast and hot lunches and dinners, according to Blunk.
The unanimous contract approval came after Blunk and Rachel Troyer, the county’s central purchasing coordinator, met in an executive session with commissioners.
Blunk said the Trinity bid was the lowest among three submitted, besting Summit Correctional Services’ offer of $2.26 per meal and Aramak Correctional Services’ bid of $2.46 per meal.
One change in the new contract with Trinity is the company will only require four jail inmates to participate in the food service process. It had been eight under the previous deal.
“I would like to see no inmates in the kitchen, but that’s going to raise your cost, as well,” Blunk said.
He said using inmates potentially creates a “variety of issues.”
“(One) issue would would include (potential) injury to the inmate (during food service). Obviously your introduction of contraband is even a little bit greater with inmates working in the kitchen,” Blunk said.
He also discussed the potential for illness outbreaks, such as the jail saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If one person from the kitchen (got) COVID, we had to segregate and find new kitchen workers, which sometimes is very difficult, especially when you have to replace eight at a time and then you’re isolating them for so many days and then it can go on and on and on,” Blunk said.
“We struggled through COVID doing that. And then maybe you’re selecting some inmate workers that probably shouldn’t work in the kitchen. So your risk for something happening down would be even greater,” Blunk said.
The jail population has increased during the first four months of 2024, according to the captain. A year ago during discussions of the food contract, Blunk said the average daily population had been around 175.
He said that number was 184 in January, 216 in February, 243 in March and around 239 thus far in April.
“I expect that to continue around our capacity, which is 234. Our staff really tries hard to keep it at that capacity limit,” Blunk said.
The jail administrator said the meal plan is on a four-week cycle with a 2,800-calorie per day diet.
“It gives us a little bit of variety,” he said, adding the contract calls for several special holiday meals during the year, including Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Troyer said she was not surprised to see another significant increase in the price of the contract. The renewals, however, will be tied to the prices of food in the national Consumer Price Index, which she said rose about 4 percent last year.
“They cannot increase it above (the CPI for food). We won’t see 8, 10 or 12 percent increase, unless that consumer price index does go up that much,” she said.
