Sheriff raises alarm over jail generator failures; seeks consultant for medical contract review

LaSalle County Sheriff reported a recurring problem with the correctional facility generator and proposed hiring an outside consultant to help rewrite and monitor the county’s jail medical services contract.

The sheriff told the Public Safety Committee that the facility’s generator failed a load test for the second time in about six weeks, causing an outage that left the jail without power — including toilets and sinks — for roughly 45 minutes to an hour. The sheriff said the jail’s standard practice during an outage is to lock down inmates in secure areas and that staff were able to implement that procedure, but the repeated failures remain a safety and operations concern.

“The generator has failed when it was turned on and load was put on it,” the sheriff said. “We have to once a year have a load test on the generator for the accreditation. We now have 2 fails on that.” The sheriff said he had discussed the issue with the county chairman and maintenance staff to seek expedited repairs.

Separately, the sheriff described planning for the county’s upcoming medical-services procurement for the jail. He said many vendors that previously bid on jail medical contracts are withdrawing from the market and that other counties use an industry consultant to write RFPs, review compliance and, when warranted, assess contractual sanctions. He cited Will County and Kane County as examples, saying Will County had assessed about $400,000 in contract fines over time and Kane County up to $500,000, as enforcement tools to hold contractors accountable.

The sheriff said one consultant quoted an initial RFP-development fee of $25,000 to visit the facility, review medical operations and prepare the procurement documents; the consultant could also provide ongoing quarterly review for a lower annual fee. He asked the committee for permission to pursue the option and target starting procurement work in May or June.

“The medical counts don’t go down necessarily,” the sheriff said, urging procurement planning despite lower inmate counts. He noted that some contract remedies include monetary sanctions when vendors fail to meet staffing or required services, and that a consultant familiar with the field may identify unmet contractual obligations.

Committee members asked whether the $25,000 would come from the current budget; the sheriff said it could be paid from inmate housing funds this year and budgeted differently next year for quarterly monitoring costs.

The sheriff also reported a separate successful round of hiring, progress on facility renovations and implementation of a sheriff’s office mobile app.