Butler Eagle photo

The Butler County Prison Board wants to meet with the prison medical service provider after not acting on the provider’s proposed wage and staff increases that would add more than $300,000 to the $1.89 million contract.

PrimeCare Medical of Harrisburg submitted a proposal April 4 requesting the hiring of three employees and raising the pay for all medical staff at the prison at an annual cost of $304,803 that would be in addition to the existing contract. The board did not take action on the proposal when it met Tuesday.

The proposal calls for hiring two full-time assistant directors of nursing to separately work two eight-hour shifts at a cost of $166,400 per year and a part-time certified registered nurse practitioner/physician assistant at a cost of $27,040 per year, and asks the county to cover the cost of $31,200 in pay raises already provided to existing staff.

The new positions and pay raises combined with about $57,362 for health care benefits, insurances and shift differential pay would cost the county an additional $25,400 per month and $304,803 per year, according to the proposal.

That cost would be in addition to the contract between the county and PrimeCare, which costs about $157,951.90 per month and $1,895,422 this year. This year is the second year of a five-year contract that runs from Oct. 1, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2026.

The proposal says neither party could have envisioned the impact COVID-19 would have on operations when the contract was negotiated last year.

“Unfortunately, the salaries and wages that PrimeCare had budgeted, which were extremely competitive only a short time ago for the surrounding area, are no longer sufficient to attract appropriately qualified and credentialed nursing personnel,” the proposal says.

PrimeCare said it hasn’t been able to keep up with increasing base pay rates, sign-on bonuses and other incentives offered by hospitals and health care clinics.

“As a result, the decision was made to increase our rates for your facility to maintain adequate nursing coverage. As a result, to be able to continue to effectively operate the medical department within your facility, we are respectfully requesting the county’s consideration to increase the current annual fee of the contract,” according to the proposal.

Warden Joe DeMore said prison nurse Ashley Adams sometimes works 16 hour days to treat inmates. He said 44 inmates were treated Monday and many inmates were taken to Butler Memorial Hospital last month due to acute COVID symptoms.

The proposal, he said, could help protect the county from potential lawsuits from inmates “slipping through the cracks.”

Adams said she has been seeing an increase in the number of sick inmates, including many going through withdrawal from drug and alcohol abuse.

“I have serious misgivings about this,” solicitor Will White said, about the proposal.

He said the county hasn’t been sued due to medical care provided at the prison, and PrimeCare should have accounted for its cost increases when it negotiated the contract.

The county and PrimeCare can discuss hiring additional staff, but the county does not have enough information to change the contract, he said.

“They want to increase staff and raise other salaries through the back door,” White said.

In other business, the board agreed to issue a request for proposals to create a jail-based substance abuse service program, and approved the $16,408 purchase of a secure shower for the female inmate unit.