Last Updated: July 22. 2011 1:00AM

Prisons director: Security a concern in privatizing meal service

Paul Egan/ Detroit News Lansing Bureau

Lansing— Michigan's prisons director says he has serious reservations about privatizing food and other services, as called for in its recent budget.

Dan Heyns said in an interview with The Detroit News he shares security concerns that Corrections officers have expressed about allowing more workers not employed by the Department of Corrections into the state's 34 prisons.

He said he wants to meet the targeted food savings of $7 million, along with more than $33 million in other efficiencies his department is expected to find in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. But he hopes lawmakers will allow flexibility in how savings are achieved.

"Meals are extremely important to the stability of institutions," Heyns said Wednesday. "You've got to proceed very carefully."

It costs the state $2.07 a day to provide prisoners with three meals, down from about $2.60 a year ago, spokesman Russ Marlan said.

The department is preparing to ask for bids on providing prisoner meals, as agreed before Heyns took office June 1, though only bids on operating the Cassidy Lake boot camp near Chelsea are explicitly required in the 2012 budget Gov. Rick Snyder recently signed into law, Marlan said. It's looking at making better use of technology to save $2.45 million operating prison stores and might not put that out to bid next year as earlier agreed, he said.

The department has the same concerns about privatizing prison stores and the boot camp as it does meals, Marlan said.

"We recognize that we had a target to hit, and the administration and Legislature want to see if competitively bidding various … operations will lead to efficiencies," he said. But calling for bids "doesn't mean that we're definitely going to take one of those bids and go with it."

Snyder wants to work with the department on reducing costs, but sees bids in all three areas as "an important first step," spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said.

Heyns, who was Jackson County sheriff, said he isn't dead-set against privatization, but the issue requires more study. Part of his job, he said, is forging better ties with lawmakers.

"My guess is that some of the actions of the Legislature… have been born out of frustration," Heyns said.

Sen. John Proos, R-St. Joseph, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Corrections, vented some of that frustration Thursday.

The department "has failed to live within its means," or "find the kind of savings… that would bring the per-prisoner costs in line," Proos said.

It costs about $94 per prisoner per day to house an inmate in Michigan, compared with about $75 a day in other Midwest states, he said. "The director has to get to work yesterday on the problems of today."

Proos said he expects the law to be followed, but has "no problem" if Heyns can achieve the same savings through other methods.

Mel Grieshaber, executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization union, said privatizing food services would mean extra cost for the state. Department officials who oversee prisoners making meals also provide security today, but officers will likely have to be assigned to help a contractor, he said.

"I would give this director and this new department leadership a little breathing room," he said.

Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative at the Mackinac Center, said Heyns needs only to look to other states to see what is possible.

"Private companies operate entire prisons, including food services within them," LaFaive said. "If New Mexico can succeed allowing 45 percent of their prisoners to be housed and secured by private contractors, I am sure there is a way to safely deliver food services, too."

Though Heyns is new to prisons, he operated the Jackson County Jail, where prisoners typically stay for less than a year.

"My perspective has changed a little bit," he said. "You can feed people stuff for 45 days that you can't feed them for 25 years."

pegan@detnews.com

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