Pitt commissioner approve search for new jail health provider

The Pitt County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to authorize the sheriff to seek new bids for providing health services at the detention center.

The 6-0 vote came after Commissioner Tom Coulson declared he wouldn’t support the request because Sheriff Paula Dance didn’t present it.

“I am sorry. I am not going to accept the report from you,” Coulson told detention center Chief Lim Capehart, who made the request.

“I don’t mean any disrespect but I would like to see the lady come up here and have the guts to stand before us and ask for things rather than send other people to do the battle for her,” Coulson said. Despite his declaration that he would vote against the request, Coulson joined the other commissioners in voting yes.

Three commissioners — board Chairman Mark Smith, Melvin McLawhorn and Lauren White — didn’t attend Monday’s meeting.

Capehart asked the commissioners for authorization to pursue a new medical services contract for the detention center after the current provider asked for an increase 22 percent above the agreed-upon rate. Capehart said proposal requests would be solicited next month, with the goal of awarding the contract in early October and the new provider starting in November.

The current provider, WellPath, is seeking a 22 percent increase above the 5 percent annual increase agreed to in the original contract, Capehart said.

The jail’s health services budget with the 5 percent increase is $3.5 million, Capehart said. If the 22 percent increase is added, the budget increases to $3.99 million.

“My feelings are that WellPath was brought here because of the sheriff,” Coulson said. “If they want extra money I think it should come out of the sheriff’s budget.”

Coulson, who is not seeking re-election, called himself a lame duck, saying it gave him the freedom to speak his mind.

“When I see the sheriff on social media, bad-mouthing members of this board, criticizing us for problems sometimes she’s created, and her attitude towards us is quite frankly hateful,” Coulson said.

“Let’s just try to keep this on jail medicine,” said Commissioner Christopher Nunnally, board vice chairman, who oversaw Monday’s meeting.

Coulson said his complaints are focused on jail health services because Dance insisted the county switch jail health care providers and recommended WellPath.

When asked what he expected other providers would submit, Capehart said he expected them to be close to the amount sought by WellPath because of the increased cost in staffing, drugs and other services.

Nunnally asked why, if other providers will submit similar bids, the county should go through the RFP process.

“To be a good steward (with) such an increase, the only response is to be responsive in that process to make sure we bring it to you all so you wouldn’t be able to say that we are favoring one company over the other,” Capehart said. “We just want proper service for inmates at the facility. Cost is only going to be a factor but at the same time you still have to focus on if they are getting the job done.”

Capehart said WellPath will likely submit a request for proposal.

“When we had this long-drawn out conversation years ago (about switching providers) this is exactly what we said would happen,” Nunnally said. “They would come in low and then come in high. My concern is, you are in a tough position to be in.”

Coulson asked why the request came before the commissioners in July, three months after WellPath contacted the sheriff.

After consulting with one of his officers, Capehart said WellPath met with detention center representatives the first of June. It wasn’t until earlier this month that the sheriff decided to ask commissioners to authorize the RFP process.

Capehart’s request followed the public comments period where nearly a dozen speakers urged the board to give Dance the 12 percent pay increase she requested during budget discussions in the spring.

More than 100 Dance supporters filled the commissioners’ auditorium. Normally people who cannot find a seat in the auditorium are asked to stand in the adjoining hallway and watch the meeting on a television. At Monday’s meeting more than a dozen people, many of them deputies and detention center staff, were allowed to stand in the back.

Two employees from NC Protection Group were on duty, one in the meeting room and one outside.

A number of the speakers were detention center staff and deputies, including Capehart.

“The sheriff is a very strong-willed person,” Capehart said. “I truly understand that her personality may come off a little abrasive at times, but it’s because she truly believes in what she is trying to deliver for the community and the citizens of Pitt County. She won’t waver from it, no matter what.”

Decisions on how Pitt County tax dollars are spent shouldn’t be decided by people who don’t like her personality, he said.

Bishop Rosie O’neal, founder and senior pastor of Koinonia Christian Center Church, shared a similar concern.

“I really want to see her get this raise. I want everybody to be paid well. I am probably a little more concerned at what seemed to be the hostility because she asked for it,” O’neal said. “As a woman, I’ve seen where a man can come in and say I have this skill and that skill … and we go that is a man who is assertive, that’s leadership characteristic. But when a woman does that same thing it’s almost as if she has assaulted someone’s sensibility.”

O’neal said if a person is penalized for asking for the same opportunities that others get, then a negative message is being sent.

“If we do that, we’ll miss some of our talent and lose some of the benefit we could have,” O’neal said.

Other speakers praised programs Dance started to help detainees fight drug addiction and to secure a high school equivalency degree. They also praised her efforts to secure pay raises for deputies and detention center officers.

They repeatedly mentioned that Dance is North Carolina’s first black female sheriff and only one of five black female sheriffs in the nation.

Sharon Evans called on a board to hold a vote where each commissioner could vote yes or no on whether Dance gets a raise. That way, the citizens of Pitt County will know where the individual commissioners stand on the issue.