News from the South - Oklahoma News Feed
Oklahoma Looks to Privatize Prison Food Service
Oklahoma Looks to Privatize Prison Food Service
Fresh food was easy to come by when Teri Castle began serving time in the West Virginia Department of Corrections.
Women incarcerated at the Lakin Correctional Center had unlimited access to a salad bar at lunch and dinner. Many of the ingredients came from a prisoner-run garden.
That all changed when Aramark, a private food service company that operates in thousands of arenas, hospitals, schools and correctional facilities nationwide, took over in the early 2010s. Food from the garden no longer made it to the kitchen. She said the company started serving highly processed meals and charging prisoners for fresh fruits and vegetables as an add-on service called FreshFavorites.
“Whenever you can’t get those vitamins and minerals that you need, everything declines,” Castle said. “I ended up in the hospital because my iron level fell so low that I ended up in a seizure.”
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is planning a similar transition from in-house to privatized food service. A pending request for proposal, set to close on Feb. 21, seeks a food service provider capable of feeding nearly 20,000 state prisoners daily. The agency plans to have the outside food vendor assume food service operations by late summer.
Corrections officials have pitched food service privatization as a solution to reduce waste and increase food quality, arguing that larger companies have proven their ability to serve better meals at a lower price. Critics question companies’ profit motive and point to examples of states where privatization went poorly, including West Virginia, Michigan and Missouri.
Rising food costs and inefficiencies across facilities have plagued the agency for years. A 2022 report from the Office of Fiscal Transparency found that food costs varied by more than 40% across prisons despite all facilities utilizing a master menu. Ashlee Clemons, the agency’s chief financial officer, told lawmakers its food costs have increased 30% since 2020.
“That’s a driver to get this privatized,” Executive Director Stephen Harpe said during a Jan. 21 Senate Public Safety Committee budget hearing. “They have a lot more leverage around pricing and logistics than we do, which should drive that [food costs] down.”
The request for proposal calls for bidders to have at least a decade of large-scale correctional food service experience. Once awarded, the vendor and corrections department would develop a master menu that meets minimum nutritional requirements.
The agency is also bidding out its commissary service to a private vendor. One of the largest commissary vendors in the U.S., the Union Supply Group, is owned by Aramark, sparking concern among prisoner advocates that vendors might intentionally serve bland food to drive up sales of higher-margin snack foods. Kay Thompson, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said the agency will cap price increases as the vendor assumes operations.
“I can’t see them switching to something to save money and the food gets better.”
Linda Barnes
Prison officials also said they would assign monitoring personnel to oversee the outside vendor’s operations and regularly survey the inmate population on food preferences and quality via state-issued tablets. The vendor would be required to submit a corrective action plan if the scores fall too low.
Prison food experts interviewed by Oklahoma Watch said the inmate survey is a positive addition but they remain skeptical that the change will improve health.
“I have never seen an instance of a state switching from in-house to contracted food service where I’ve heard something positive about the results,” said Leslie Soble, the senior manager of the Food in Prison Project at Impact Justice.
Michigan fined Aramark hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2014 and 2015 as issues ranging from maggots in food to workers smuggling in drugs accumulated. Similar problems persisted when the state switched to Trinity Food Services in 2016. The state returned to in-house food service in 2018, with one high-ranking state lawmaker calling the contract a nightmare.
Missouri prisoners complained of eating bologna for several days after Aramark took over food service operations in 2023. The company responded to the allegations by stating it worked with prison officials to develop nutritional guidelines and aims to resolve issues quickly.
Daniel Rosen leads the Coalition for Carceral Nutrition, a nonprofit that aims to improve food quality in prisons and jails. He said prison officials are drawn to outsource food services because it’s expensive and time-consuming to maintain kitchen equipment, source food and recruit and retain food service employees.
Accountability can be tricky when the agreement doesn’t go to plan, Rosen said. States that opt to return to in-house food service face the logistical headache of re-hiring employees who left for the private vendor.
“They’ll kind of point fingers at each other and say it’s not their fault,” he said. “I do put a lot of blame for that stuff on government officials who write the contract without specific enough requirements. The less specific corrections agencies are about contract requirements, the more latitude these companies have to feed people whatever they want.”
The agency’s bid calls for menus to contain a minimum of 2,800 calories and less than 3.5 grams of sodium, but does not specify a minimum amount of fresh fruit or vegetables to be served. The proposal also requires vendors to purchase some food from the agency’s Agri-Services division but does not specify an amount.
Castle, who was released from prison in 2021 and co-wrote a research paper on West Virginia’s poor prison food quality, said prison officials can adopt several accountability measures to keep private vendors in check. These include creating a food oversight committee at every facility, requiring vendors to take a photo of every meal served and requiring regular unannounced sight checks.
“We’re not trying to create Disneyland ….”
Stephen Harpe
Oklahoma’s proposal states that corrections personnel and state or county health department personnel may conduct unannounced inspections, but does not specify how often those inspections must occur.
“It can turn into a disaster,” Castle said of states with lax food service oversight. “You’re going to see a lot more mental health issues, a lot more violence. It’s not going to be good if people can’t get what they need to survive.”
Emily Barnes, the founder of the Oklahoma prisoner advocacy group Hooked on Justice, said prisoners have been reporting poor food quality and small portions in recent months. But she fears a food provider with a profit motive could make things worse.
“I can’t see them switching to something to save money and the food gets better,” she said. “When you cut corners and the stuff is cheaper, I don’t believe there’s going to be an increase in quality.”
Harpe maintained that a change would benefit taxpayers and prisoners during a Jan. 24 House Appropriations and Budget Public Safety subcommittee hearing, citing poor survey results from the prisoner population.
“The problem is there’s a lot of waste and the food isn’t very good,” Harpe told lawmakers. “We’re not trying to create Disneyland, but the more we’re able to humanize those in our care, the less violence we’re going to have.”
This article first appeared on Oklahoma Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
News from the South - Oklahoma News Feed
Family sues Roblox, accusing them of failing to protect kids from predators
SUMMARY: An Oklahoma family is suing Roblox, accusing the popular gaming platform of failing to protect children from predators. The suit centers on a 12-year-old girl allegedly groomed and sexually extorted by a man posing as a 15-year-old boy. According to court documents, the predator coerced the girl into sending explicit photos, threatened to kill her family, and manipulated her using Roblox’s digital currency. The family claims Roblox is a “hunting ground for child predators” and profits from these dangers. Roblox states it has safeguards and recently announced plans to better detect risks. The lawsuit does not specify damages sought.
Family sues Roblox, accusing them of failing to protect kids from predators
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News from the South - Oklahoma News Feed
Thousands of State Employees Still Working Remotely
More than 8,500 state employees are working remotely at least some of the time, with the arrangement mostly from a lack of space at agencies.
The Office of Management and Enterprise Services compiled the latest numbers after a December executive order issued by Gov. Kevin Stitt mandating a return to the office for state employees.
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality went in opposite directions on remote work in the second quarter report. Just 12% of employees at the Corporation Commission were on remote work in the first quarter. That jumped to 59% in the second quarter. The agency has relocated as its longtime office, the Jim Thorpe Building, undergoes renovations.
Brandy Wreath, director of administration for the Corporation Commission, said the agency has a handful of experienced employees in its public utility division who work out of state and were hired on a telework basis. Some other employees are working remotely because of doctor’s orders limiting their interactions. The agency got rid of space and offices in the Jim Thorpe Building before the renovations started. The building project is expected to be completed in the next six months.
“At Jim Thorpe, we were right-sized for everyone to be in the office,” Wreath said. “Whenever we moved to Will Rogers, we are in temporary space, and we don’t have enough space for everyone to be in every day.”
Wreath said the Corporation Commission uses the state’s Workday system that has codes for employees to use when they are logged in and working remotely. Employees also know they are subject to random activity audits.
“We’re supportive of the idea of having employees in the workplace and willing to serve,” Wreath said. “We also realize the value of having employees in rural Oklahoma and still being a part of the state structure. Our goal is to make sure our employees are productive, no matter where they are working. We are supportive of return-to-office, and we are utilizing the tools OMES has given us to ensure the state is getting its money’s worth.”
The Department of Environmental Quality now has just 1% of its employees working remotely. That’s down from 30% in the first quarter. Spokeswoman Erin Hatfield said the agency, with 527 employees, is in full compliance with the executive order. Seven employees are on telework, with all but one on temporary telework status as they recover from medical issues.
There are three exceptions to the return-to-office policy: employees whose hours are outside normal business hours; employees who already work in the field; and when new or additional office space would have to be acquired at additional cost.
The Department of Human Services continued to have more than 80% of its 6,060 employees on some type of telework, according to the second quarter report. The agency said those numbers stemmed mostly from a lack of available office space. DHS closed dozens of county offices or found other agency office space for its employees to use in the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was a huge shift to remote work.
The latest telework report covers 29,250 of the state’s 31,797 employees. About 30% of employees were on some version of telework in the second quarter. Dozens of agencies did not submit quarterly reports to the Office of Management and Enterprise Services.
Paul Monies has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2017 and covers state agencies and public health. Contact him at (571) 319-3289 or pmonies@oklahomawatch.org. Follow him on Twitter @pmonies.
Related
The post Thousands of State Employees Still Working Remotely appeared first on oklahomawatch.org
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This content provides a fact-based report on the remote work status of Oklahoma state employees following an executive order from Governor Kevin Stitt. It presents information from multiple state agencies with no apparent favor or criticism of the executive order or political figures involved. The tone is neutral and focuses on the practical reasons and outcomes of remote work policies, reflecting a balanced approach without clear ideological leanings.
News from the South - Oklahoma News Feed
Test taker finds it's impossible to fail 'woke' teacher assessment
SUMMARY: Oklahoma’s “America First” teacher qualification test aims to weed out “woke” educators from states like California and New York, focusing on civics, parental rights, and biology. However, many find it nearly impossible to fail. Test-takers, including independent publisher Ashley, report multiple attempts allowed per question, enabling passing regardless of knowing answers, often by guessing until correct. Average Oklahomans tested struggled with the questions, highlighting the test’s difficulty and questionable effectiveness. Critics say the test’s ease defeats its purpose of ensuring teacher knowledge. The state superintendent’s office was contacted for comment but had yet to respond.
Test taker finds it’s impossible to fail ‘woke’ teacher assessment
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