By Paul Egan
Detroit Free Press
LANSING — The State Board of Ethics is holding a hearing today on a union allegation that a Corrections Department official has accepted thousands of dollars worth of coffee, chicken, soft drinks, meats, cosmetics and other items from a prison supplier.
The Michigan State Employees Association leveled the complaint in March against Jim Kolb, who supervises a Michigan Department of Corrections regional store at Parnall Correctional Facility near Jackson.
Kolb, who has the backing of a preliminary investigation by the department, denies any wrongdoing. He and the department say the food and other items supplied by prison vendor the Keefe Group are free samples the company provides as a way of determining whether the department wants to start stocking them in the prison stores. Kolb says accepting the samples are standard industry practice.
But in a written complaint to the ethics board, MSEA President Ken Moore said a union member who worked in the prison store raised the concern in October 2013. The union used the Michigan Freedom of Information Act to obtain store delivery records after an internal investigation went nowhere, Moore said.
Not only has Kolb been using or consuming the free goods, but “the gifts have been disseminated throughout the facility,” Moore said. “In some cases they are shared with inmates, and upper management,” he said.
“The invoices reveal thousands of dollars in goods that have either been categorized as ‘sample’ or the price line has been zeroed out,” Moore’s complaint alleges.
“Many of the items received do not appear as approved items in the prison store. There are many items that are ordered over and over. This would not indicate that they were being ‘sampled.’ ”
Moore said in the complaint that MSEA also filed FOIA requests for invoices from regional prison stores at Ionia Correctional Facility and Kinross Correctional Facility. “It appears that similar ethics violations are occurring (at Ionia and Kinross), albeit in a much smaller capacity than at Parnall,” Moore said.
The complaint alleges Kolb violated two sections of the state Ethics Act — which is a civil law, not a criminal one — by using state property under his control for personal benefit and by accepting gifts which tend to influence the way he carries out his public duties.
The department said in April it plans to close the three regional prison stores, eliminating about 30 state jobs. It will turn the work now being performed by the stores over to the Missouri-based Keefe Group, which will supply prisoners more directly through its SecurePaks — courier-type packages that department officials say are less likely to contain contraband.
The seven-member board, appointed by the governor, can recommend sanctions up to dismissal if it finds an official has violated the ethics law.
Kolb did not deny the value of the sample items totaled in the thousands of dollars, but denied any wrongdoing in a letter to the board.
“Product samples are not used for personal gain,” Kolb said. “Rather, it is the prisoner store supervisor’s responsibility to ensure that all products are of acceptable quality, meet policy requirements, and meet security requirements of the Michigan Department of Corrections.
“In order to ensure that quality is not solely based on the supervisor’s discretion, samples are also provided randomly to other staff and inmates in the prisoner store to garner a consensus decision.”
Kolb said the samples don’t influence how he does his job “as I do not have the authority to enter into any contracts or change any existing contracts with any vendors that provide products to the prisoner store.”
Many samples show up randomly and without notice, he said.
Keefe, which holds the “SecurePak” contract through which prisoners can order a range of items from a catalog for delivery to the prisons, is a supplier of the prison stores but not the only such vendor that provides free samples, Kolb said.
A May 11 report of a preliminary investigation conducted by Steven Wendry of the department’s internal affairs division concluded “no items are being improperly diverted to, or used for, the personal gain of any employees of the MDOC.”
“The items identified in the written complaint include chicken breasts ... shredded beef, Maxwell House coffee and numerous other items,” Wendry wrote in the report. “A review of the overall store’s process revealed that these items are being sent by the vendor, which is currently Keefe, to the Department of Corrections as sample items.”
Wendry did find that samples of coffee and coffee creamer were being sent “in excessive amounts” by Keefe, but he said the practice has been widespread for 20 years and Kolb should not have been singled out.
“This practice was stopped in January ... when Mr. Kolb ordered that the coffee provided to the employees be purchased by the employees,” Wendry wrote.