Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 1 · column 2 of 4 · from the scan, no model involved
Monday’s first Board of Supervisors meeting of the •^new year began with a bang — the bang of a trash can lid.
^\We’re sjjgfufingJJlOOji day (to feed prisoners incarceratedjn^the countyjafl) and they’re throwing $75 of it in the trash can,” Sheriff John Henry Woodward reported, asking the board to consider adding a kitchen to solve the Sheriffs Department’s continuing problems with food service. “We have to serve it to them, but we can’t make them eat it,” the sheriff said, adding that the inmates complain constantly about the quality of the food.
By contract, meals for prisoners in the Rappahannock jail are catered by the Hampton Inn at a charge of $9 a day per prisoner. Rappahannock and Clarke counties are the only local correctional facilities in Virginia that have outside vendors supply meals; the rest have jail kitchens where food is prepared on-site. Rappahannock’s cost, which has remained constant since the contractual arrangement began four years, is double the $1.50 per meal maximum for any other Virginia jail and more then triple the 90 cents per meal for which neighboring Warren County feeds inmates, Sheriff Woodward noted.
“I’m not trying to Lake the business aw ay from the Hampton Inn,” he emphasized, noting that proprietor Millie Cebula has not missed a single delivery in four years. “But we’re lucky we haven’t gotten sued over it.” According to the sheriff, “foreign material” has been found in the food and two visiting representatives from the Department of Corrections Richmond headquarters “ate here and got sick before they were halfway back . . . The food is very greasy. It takes about two weeks for any prisoner to get adjusted to it, and in the meantime, I’m running them to the clinic. That’s another expense.”
If the Hampton Inn should close its kitchen and another caterer can’t be found, it w’ould prove costly, the sheriff warned. Since the jail opened in 1984, its operational expenses have been born entirely by the state, with the possible exception of $200 to $300 coming from the county last year, he said. The State Compensation Board sets and pays the salaries for all correctional officers plus reimbursement at $7.50 per prisoner per day, the money coming in quarterly installments with a minimum of $20,000 guaranteed annually. “At the end of the year, Richmond adds up what’s been paid in the first three quartefs, subtracts that from $20,000 and sends us the balance,’’ Sheriff Woodward explained.
In addition, the county gets $19.50 per day for keeping prisoners'from other jurisdictions, $7.50 from the
90.1%