Sacramento Area Local News

SACRAMENTO (AP) ― A private prison company that has been lobbying the Schwarzenegger administration and is a campaign contributor to the governor's causes has made a bid to operate an overhauled inmate medical system, a move that could conflict with court-ordered reforms, according to a document obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The offer by The GEO Group Inc. of Florida caught the court-appointed receiver overseeing reform of California's inmate health care system by surprise.

In the five-page internal memo obtained by the AP, the receiver's chief of staff repeatedly makes it clear that he believes the bid was solicited by the Schwarzenegger administration and questions the administration's motives.

Chief of staff John Hagar writes that The GEO Group has spent more than $300,000 lobbying the governor's office and Legislature since January. Campaign records on file with the secretary of state's office show the company also made a $50,000 contribution last month to the campaign for Proposition 11, the redistricting initiative on the November ballot backed by Schwarzenegger.

"The solicitation is all the more troublesome because the Federal Court has taken responsibility away from the Secretary of Corrections concerning the delivery of medical services," Hagar wrote in the memo to court receiver Clark Kelso.

Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Lisa Page denied the administration solicited GEO's bid. She said Hagar may be concerned about the overture by a private firm because "the receiver can't defend his $8 billion boondoggle."

That's the amount the court receiver says he needs to build medical facilities for 10,000 inmates.

Page said the GEO Group approached the administration but was referred to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Corrections spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said company officials met last month with Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate, who referred them to the receiver's office.

"There was no discussion beyond that because of the obvious, I guess: We don't run the prison medical system," Hidalgo said. "All we did was refer them to the receiver's office."

Schwarzenegger's political spokeswoman, Julie Soderlund, denied any connection between the governor's policy decisions and the contribution to Proposition 11, which is leading in the vote tally but remains too close to call.

Officials with The GEO Group and its lobbyists did not return telephone messages Monday.

Hagar said the company has submitted a proposal and said it will meet later this week with Kelso, the court-appointed receiver.

He wrote that the bid from GEO could be a way to undermine the reform efforts overseen by the federal courts. That's because the company's bid to run inmate medical services could be less expensive than the state-run medical centers proposed by the receiver's office.

"We should be careful that the governor's office does not use the GEO proposal as a diversion, attempting to argue to the public that it is more cost effective, when in fact it will not address the constitutional problem at issue and it may violate California law," Hagar wrote. "The governor's office may use GEO as an attempt to derail our construction program in the public arena."

The actual bid could not be obtained Monday, and it was not immediately known whether the company offered a cost estimate. Hagar wrote that GEO is proposing "a generic prison" that "will prove woefully inadequate concerning the day-to-day requirements" of inmate care.

Kelso, who is engaged in a court battle with the administration, declined to comment.

His reform program is intended to remedy prison medical care that has been ruled unconstitutional because of negligence and malfeasance. In recent years, the receiver's office has boosted pay for doctors and nurses and hired dozens of medical staff members in an attempt to improve conditions.

It's not clear how the federal judge in San Francisco would receive a proposal to private inmate medical care, considering the history of poor treatment. The system had been blamed for killing an inmate a week through incompetence.

Privatizing those functions also may run afoul of state law because it would take work from state prison guards and other government employees.

"The GEO Group has a dismal record of both safety and care and treatment, even worse than the Department of Corrections," said Lance Corcoran, a spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents most prison guards.

The company runs prisons for nearly 60,000 inmates in the U.S. and other countries. In his memo, Hagar cites several legal cases involving the company and the care it provides inmates.

The Idaho Department of Correction last week terminated its contract with GEO.

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