MANSFIELD — Richland County commissioners reviewed Thursday in executive session proposals from companies seeking to provide medical services to the county jail.
No decisions were made following the 30-minute, closed-door session with Rachel Troyer, the county’s central services coordinator.
Troyer said she will discuss the proposals with Richland County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Chris Blunk, the jail administrator. She and Blunk are scheduled to return to a commissioners’ meeting in mid February.
The county’s current contract, which expires Feb. 29, is with Advanced Correctional Healthcare, which has provided jail medical services for the past several years.
Sheriff Steve Sheldon said in January that he and Blunk are seeking an “enhanced option” in the department’s next jail medical services contract, including the addition of a second LPN at the jail 24/7 (including holidays) and a “very comprehensive (drug/alcohol) treatment program” for inmates.
“We would be observing or assessing and documenting every four hours those who the medical staff determines are experiencing severe withdrawal,” Blunk said. “That would definitely be an enhancement of what we currently do.”
He said timely health appraisals of arriving inmates by a nurse would also be improved.
Blunk said that appraisal would be done within two hours of every new inmate’s arrival at the jail, an assessment now done within 14 days under the administrative code.
Sheldon told commissioners in January it’s a “different era” these days in terms of potential medical needs for inmates at the 266-bed county jail.
“We have people that come in that have mental health issues. We have people that are coming in that have drug and alcohol issues. We’ve learned that, especially through the drug issues, they might be in jail for four or five days before they go through a severe withdrawal.
“We need to have plan in action to be able to deal with that,” Sheldon said.
The county is paying $673,318 under the current contract.
Blunk has said the company, headquartered in Peoria, Ill., had offered a renewal option with the same current services with an increased cost of 33 percent, about $222,000. The contract has also covered a doctor who is available at any time and a full-time registered nurse.
He said ACH had wanted nearly $1 million for a one-year deal with the enhanced options sought by the department. The RCSO budget for the jail in 2024 is $760,000.
He said the department believed its best option was to advertise the contract, beginning Jan. 16, which would allow ACH to submit a proposal.
Local officials declined to disclose how many proposals were submitted nor offer any details on the proposals themselves.
When Richland Source questioned the commissioners’ decision to conduct the review in executive session, county administrator Andrew Keller cited Ohio Revised Code 307.862, which outlines procedures that must be followed when handling competitive sealed bid proposals.
An attorney, Keller said the state’s public meetings law (ORC 121.22) allows exemptions for “matters required to be kept confidential by federal law or regulations or state statutes.”
Under ORC 307.862, “in order to ensure fair and impartial evaluation, proposals and any documents or other records related to a subsequent negotiation for a final contract that would otherwise be available for public inspection and copying under section 149.43 of the Revised Code shall not be available until after the award of the contract.”
In this instance, Keller said the proposals are different than bids sought for work such as road and bridge contracts, which are awarded to the “lowest, best bid.”
“We have to open proposals in a manner that prevents disclosure of one proposal to another offer. The reason for that is, unlike an invitation to bid, it’s not a lowest and best bid standard. Under our request for proposal methodology, we award the contract to the most qualified offer, or based upon the criteria that we develop.
“And we still have the opportunity to negotiate with the highest-ranked offer,” Keller said. “These are negotiations that are only successful if we honor the law’s requirement that we keep it confidential.”
Keller said once a contract is awarded, all of the proposals would be made public.
“We’re actually prohibited by law from allowing the other companies to see their competitors’ offers until the contract’s awarded. So it’s really not up to us,” he said.
Commissioner Darrell Banks told a Richland Source reporter said the three-member board must follow the law.
“Maybe you better go talk to the Ohio legislature. There used to be full of a bunch of lawyers. But there are fewer lawyers down there now than there’s ever been that you might look into that, too, while you’re down there,” Banks said.
“(Commissioners) do not write laws. We have no legislative authority, so we can’t change anything here,” he said.
