Maintenance Outsourcing Moves Inside

Outsourcing maintenance services is an established trend in almost every facilities market, but it is still relatively uncommon in corrections. Some criminal justice officials fear the security headaches of having outside personnel bringing tools into their facilities, while others worry that response times for emergency repairs would be dangerously slow.

Nevertheless, a market for privatized maintenance in corrections does exist. The largest state correctional organization to ever solicit a contractor for maintenance services is the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), currently outsourcing 25 facilities. While the new program’s preliminary cost evaluations indicate maintenance costs are up slightly, DJJ officials say they are meeting their goals.

“We believe that there is a slight increase in cost, but a significant increase in the effectiveness and the quality of the maintenance that we’re doing,” says David Clark, director of DJJ Engineering & Construction Services, who adds that less corrective maintenance is required, and that a new emphasis on preventative maintenance is now possible. “We are seeing improvements in the material condition of our facility.”

Two years ago, the DJJ had a variety of maintenance problems that never seemed to get resolved. For example, one facility did not have full fire marshal approval due to a faulty fire alarm system. Statewide, poorly maintained and malfunctioning door locks were generating bad press in Georgia newspapers. “We were looking to [achieve] consistency and correct the problems where we were weak,” says Clark.

A small field of firms contract for correctional maintenance services. The Berger Group provides maintenance management for buildings used by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, serving nine detainee processing centers with capacity to hold 4,000 illegal aliens. Aramark, long the leader in uniform and food contracts, entered the correctional maintenance field in 1996 when it purchased the assets of market forerunner, Diversified Facility Services. Aramark currently contracts with 13 counties throughout the U.S.

The Georgia DJJ issued a request for proposals to have a contractor set up a computerized maintenance system, in addition to supporting DJJ staff with administration and service. Winning that contract was CGL Engineering, a division of Carter Goble Lee LLC, which also runs an architecture practice and one of the nation’s leading justice programming firms, Carter Goble Associates.

CGL Principal Joe Lee was founder of Diversified Facility Services and later became president of Aramark Correctional Facilities. Working with CGL Engineering President Dexter Stanphill, a former engineering director for the Georgia DOC, Lee now aims to provide the services of highly-trained engineers as well as low-skill labor such as grounds-keeping crews, targeting bids where qualifications are as important as bid price.

To those who associate outsourcing with unacceptable delays, Lee says the company’s response times to DJJ work orders average between 30 and 45 minutes after contacting the call center in Fayetteville, N.C. “Between 60 and 80 percent of the time, we can solve the issue over the phone,” Lee says. The Web-based, computerized maintenance management system further shortens response time by allowing DJJ staff to enter work orders and track their status via the Internet.

But with so many security concerns unique to corrections, can outside personnel be trusted to work safely in this environment? Joe Lee says CGL Engineering takes pains to provide the proper training, which includes full protocols for tool checks. “How our staff interacts with youth or inmates has to be on a professional level,” he says. “We work through every scenario with the user. Our staff is an extension of their staff. Then they can concentrate on their core business, which is managing youth.”

Clark says his department now has the service consistency they sought, and that there’s been substantial improvement in quality of repair for technically advanced systems such as fire alarms, HVAC controls, and locking control systems. In addition, the locks themselves are no longer a problem, partially because the maintenance has improved, but also because the youth in the facility are better supervised.

“This year, when I did maintenance review inspections of facilities, I found practically no lock problems at all, with the exception of one facility where the supervision of the kids wasn’t being handled well,” says Clark. In other cases, technical expertise made the difference, as when CGL engineers devised a way to keep locks from being engaged when a door is open, which gave youths an opportunity to damage the units.

“The kids are rough,” says Clark, noting that the computerized maintenance management system has made it easier to monitor trouble spots. “We see varying amounts of vandalism, and we had no way of tracking it. Now when we see vandalism maintenance going up at a particular location, we can investigate and deal with it.”

Another critical step was being specific in their contract, a one-year contract with an option for a four-year renewal, says Clark. The contract is geared toward circumventing bureaucratic delays. For example, if an air conditioning system needs a new compressor, the state procurement system would require officials to obtain an Emergency Procurement Authorization and a bidding process. Now, the contractor can respond quicker by finding a sub-contractor that provides those services-and seal the deal with negotiation.

“It helps you work within a legal contracting instrument to overcome the bureaucratic problems you have within a government procurement system,” says Clark. “The contractor also has the advantage of being able to hire qualified people and, when necessary, to help them move on.” In addition, Clark has seen a reduced number of equipment breakdowns, which he attributes to a contract requirement for a prescribed level of preventative maintenance, which has the potential to reduce costs over the course of CGL’s contract.

“Bottom line: we are achieving what we wanted to,” says Clark.