“This is going to be a $17 million contract,” said county solicitor Don LeFever, “and so we don’t want to just hop into it.”


He said the county is aware of published stories in Florida and elsewhere raising questions about the political connections of Armor officials and about the record of the prison health firm where four top Armor executives once worked.


In a June 26 letter to the county, Armor’s chief executive officer, Doyle H. Moore, rebutted the charges, which he termed “false information regarding the integrity of Armor Correctional Health Services Inc.”


The county Prison Board voted in June to recommend outsourcing health care at the prison to Armor, one of five firms to respond to the county’s request for proposals in January.


Final approval of the contract must come from the county commissioners.


“Both the vendor and the contract are being looked at,” LeFever said.


But prison Warden Vincent Guarini said that while the scrutiny is needed, Armor still looks like a good bet. “We’re still 100 percent, as far as I’m concerned, headed in the Armor direction,” he said.




‘Completely false’




Armor, based in Coconut Creek, Fla., was founded two years ago by Dr. Jose Armas, who owns Medical Care Consortium Inc., a South Florida provider of outpatient health services.


Armas and his affiliated firms gave $8,000 to the 2004 re-election campaign of Sheriff Ken Jenne in Broward County, Fla. That year, Jenne hired Armor to serve Broward County inmates in a $127 million, five-year contract.


Jenne is under federal investigation for defrauding the public in his private consulting work, according to the Miami Herald. A former aide was quoted as saying Jenne also recommended Armor for St. Lucie County’s inmate care.


Moore, the Armor CEO, said in his June 26 letter to Lancaster County purchasing director Barry Hitchcock — Armor provided a copy to the Sunday News — that “Armor has not had any involvement with the current legal allegations Sheriff Jenne is currently addressing.”


Also, Moore wrote, “Sheriff Jenne has no financial or business relationship with our company other than in his official capacity as sheriff of Broward County. He is pleased with the services Armor has provided to Broward County and is willing to share his recommendations of his own free will.”


In 1978, Moore founded one of the largest prison medical care firms, Prison Health Services, which has been criticized harshly for the quality of its care around the country.


He and four other former Prison Health executives are now officers of Armor; the Miami Herald reported in 2005 that Armor was incorporated and bid on the Broward County contract weeks after the executives left.


The New York Times, in a scathing 2005 story on Prison Health Services’ record in New York, wrote that “state investigators say they kept discovering the same failings: medical staffs trimmed to the bone, doctors underqualified or out of reach, nurses doing tasks beyond their training, prescription drugs withheld, patient records unread and employee misconduct unpunished.”


In Florida, the Times wrote, “Prison Health proved adept at ingratiating itself with local politicians, hiring lobbyists and contributing to campaigns for sheriff. Under a promise of immunity from prosecution, the nurse who founded the company, Mr. Moore, testified at a 1993 Florida corruption trial that he had paid the Broward County Republican chairman $5,000 a month — ‘basically extortion,’ he said — to keep the contract there and in neighboring Palm Beach County.”


Moore wrote to Hitchcock that charges that Armor was formed to regain the Broward contract are “completely false.”


“Although some of Armor’s executives have been previously associated and employed with PHS, the executive management team formed Armor to provide county and state governments with a new alternative to the previously established correctional health care companies,” he wrote.


Warden Guarini said the allegations about Armor’s executives amount to “guilt by association.”


Guarini said he asked about the Prison Health issue and was told that the executives who left didn’t want to be connected with the firm.


He noted that a county task force investigated the medical care proposals without knowing the prices associated with each, so that cost would not be the motivating factor. The county also is considering requiring an independent monitor as part of the contract, he said, “to make sure we’re getting what we’re supposed to get.”




Staffing problems




Lancaster County has budgeted $2.1 million this year for the medical department at the overcrowded prison.


Armor’s proposal would cost $3.1 million.


But the county has been unable to hire and retain doctors and nurses for the prison, which has 15 employees and high turnover rates. A full complement of medical staffers would cost about $2.9 million, Prison Board members said.

Litigation expenses also are a concern.


Hitchcock said last month that he estimates the county will save $400,000 over five years by contracting with Armor. Prison Board members said in seeking bids on privatizing medical care, they hope to improve the quality of health services for inmates.


All the employees in the medical department would have the option of working for Armor, should the firm be approved by the commissioners.


Guarini said if that happens, it will take at least 90 days for Armor to prepare to take over the department.


Armor serves 19,000 inmates in Florida and Virginia prisons. The firm says it is developing a post-release health care program — an attractive option for Lancaster County, which is focusing on cutting recidivism through a better-coordinated “re-entry management” system.


Lancaster County Prison had 1,236 inmates on Friday.


LeFever, the solicitor, said he doesn’t know how long the review of Armor’s proposal will take.


“I think at this point the county does not have a clear timetable” for acting on the prison board’s recommendation, he said. There may be more meetings between principals of Armor and county officials to discuss the deal.


The county also is checking Armor’s record in other areas where the firm has contracts.


“We just want to make sure everything is right with this company,” Guarini said.

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