Cuyahoga County is extending a contract for food services company Trinity Services Group to provide meals in the Downtown Cleveland jail by three months, despite longstanding concerns about food quality.
At a council meeting Tuesday, safety committee chair Michael Gallagher said he wants to hear from the new sheriff, Harold Pretel about the contract and sought to tie the issue to the ongoing debate over the construction of a new county jail.
“That segues into not just maybe Trinity being the problem but the county facility being a problem,” Gallagher said. “Which is the importance of moving forward on a new jail where it’ll be easier to put hot food on the table for these folks.”
The nearly $10 million, three-year contract, which expired in June, will now run through the end of September. The extension will cost taxpayers close to $1 million.
The union that represents officers at the jail has expressed concerns that the substandard food served at the jail is a potential safety risk for their members.
A recent article featuring a photo of a plate of food from the jail raised alarms about potential safety risks to prisoners and staff.
Union attorney Adam Chaloupka said Trinity is routinely short-staffed at the jail and, during one of those incidents of short-staffing, corporals at the jail were forced to serve food to prisoners.
They brought their concerns about the quality of the food to the union.
“The big fear, and thank God we’ve never seen it, is if you mess with the food, you run the risk of the inmates being less cooperative, refusing to comply with lockdown,” Chaloupka said.
Corrections officers don’t typically serve food to prisoners.
Jail officials told council a new contract is under negotiation, involving jail officials and staff from the county prosecutor’s office. One of the goals is to have Trinity staff handle all of the cooking and service under the new contract, said Jail Administrator Ronda Gibson.
Currently “the food is actually cooked by the county cooks, with the assistance of the inmate workers,” Gibson said. “Many people have a part in that process, and the goal, with the negotiations, is to get all of that under the vendor.”
County council members downplayed concerns raised by the union about the quality of food at the jail.
Councilmember Scott Tuma described it as “bland” and said when he went to try it, he was served a chicken cutlet that was “cold in the middle.”
Gibson told council the jail’s menu is reviewed every year by state inspectors and the jail was deemed “compliant” in its most recent inspection in October.
