Q&A
DOC's analysis of other jail service providers
0:28:32
ยท
134 sec
Council Member Julie Won inquires about DOC's analysis of other jail service providers, as mentioned in previous testimony. Deputy Commissioner James Conroy provides information on their comparison process and findings.
- DOC communicated with other jurisdictions, specifically mentioning Cook County.
- Price comparisons showed that DOC's prices were substantially lower than those in Cook County.
- DOC does not engage in revenue sharing from commissary sales, unlike some other jurisdictions.
- Conroy is unable to provide specific names of other vendors compared to Keefe Group, promising to follow up with that information.
Julie Won
0:28:32
Got it.
0:28:34
How, for DOC commissioner mag Magneli Liddy testified before the council in 2024 that DOC did an analysis of other jail service providers.
0:28:47
What did that process entail?
0:28:48
What other vendors did you examine?
0:28:50
What documents were produced for this analysis?
0:28:52
And on what grounds did you conclude the existing contract with Keefe provided better and more cost effective services than other vendors?
James Conroy
0:29:00
Well, we looked at we regularly communicate with other jurisdictions.
0:29:03
I think particularly in this case, one of them was Cook County.
0:29:06
Cook County, which, we've communicated with because they've been under a monitorship and receivership as well, and they've used a different vendor.
0:29:13
Their price the price comparison that we did at the time was substantially higher.
0:29:18
One of the important elements that I think should be pointed out, other jurisdictions have a revenue sharing program wherein they the jurisdiction or the correctional facility itself gets a portion of the the revenue from the sales.
0:29:34
We don't do that here for any of our commissary, sales whatsoever.
0:29:38
We do not revenue share.
0:29:40
So that is designed, purposefully to maintain the costs and keep them down and also to not profiteer off the persons in custody.
0:29:48
But Keefe does engage in in, those types of contract arrangements with our other jurisdictions.
0:29:54
So we did we looked at that.
0:29:56
Also, some of these are available online.
0:29:57
You know, that's another price comparison you could do even through some of the, the online, reporting.
0:30:03
But specifically, we did a price by price comparison with Cook County.
0:30:07
And actually, Cook County sought out a a separate vendor from what they were using based on our comparison because they recognized how much lower our prices were.
Julie Won
0:30:17
And who are the other vendors that you checked?
James Conroy
0:30:21
I I don't know which one Cook County was using.
0:30:23
So No.
Julie Won
0:30:23
No.
0:30:24
No.
0:30:24
For our own comparisons.
0:30:26
So for our vendors that you were checking against Kyiv to see if they're competitive, Who were they?
James Conroy
0:30:33
Oh, I don't I don't know that information.
0:30:35
And we could we could talk I could get that for you, though.
Julie Won
0:30:37
Okay.
0:30:37
Thank you.
0:30:38
I'm gonna pass it over to council member, chair Nurse, and then we'll come back to more Kyiv questions later.