COLUMBIA COUNTY, Columbia County is keeping its jail food vendor without taking bids, because, in the county’s words, “a sudden retirement” meant nobody ran the bidding process before the contract ran out.
Trinity Services Group has fed adults in custody at the Columbia County Jail since Nov. 15, 2019. That contract expires Nov. 15, 2026, “and there are no additional extensions available,” according to Order 37-2026, which the Board of County Commissioners placed on its consent agenda Oct. 21. The order says the county did not seek proposals from vendors “due to a sudden retirement in the Columbia County Jail,” and that there is no longer time to run a formal procurement before the contract ends.
The board approved it without discussion. The consent agenda is the block of items a board passes in a single vote, and the video of the Oct. 21 meeting shows the chair reading the order’s title, a motion, a second, and a unanimous voice vote, about six minutes into the meeting. No commissioner asked about the order. The county has not yet posted written minutes.
Instead of bidding, the order authorizes an emergency contract extension with Trinity while the county runs a formal procurement. Oregon’s public contracting law, ORS 279B.080, lets a public body skip competition in an emergency as long as it documents “the nature of the emergency” and describes “the method used for the selection of the particular contractor.” The order’s findings say the retirement “could not reasonably be foreseen” and that going without a food contract “for any amount of time will threaten the welfare of adults in custody and create potential legal liability for the County.”
A Date That Already Passed
The order as posted with the agenda says the extension runs “to June 15, 2026,” a date five months before the current contract expires. The order also says the current contract has no extensions left, which is why the county is using the emergency route rather than a sixth amendment. The extension contract itself was not on the Oct. 21 agenda and is not on the Oct. 28 agenda. The order does not say what the extension will cost or whether Trinity’s per-meal prices change under it.
What the County Pays per Meal
Trinity charges on a sliding scale: the more people in the jail, the less each meal costs. Under the fee schedule the board approved in January, retroactive to Dec. 15, 2025, a meal costs $8.40 when the jail holds 50 to 59 people and $2.78 at 200 to 209, according to Amendment 5 to the contract. Staff meals are $4.37. The contract lets the price rise each year by the Consumer Price Index for food away from home, capped at 3 percent; Amendment 4, a year earlier, was the previous adjustment.
| People in jail | Price per meal |
|---|---|
| 50 to 59 | $8.40 |
| 90 to 99 | $5.07 |
| 120 to 129 | $4.02 |
| 140 to 149 | $3.57 |
| 180 to 189 | $2.98 |
| 200 to 209 | $2.78 |
The sheriff’s office says the jail, built in 2000 with 258 beds, “averages 180 inmates per day” and serves three meals a day, according to its jail page. At 180 people, Trinity’s rate is $2.98 a meal, which works out to about $1,600 a day and roughly $590,000 a year, by the Tribune’s arithmetic. The sheriff’s public roster listed 142 people in custody at 7 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27. At that count the rate is $3.57 a meal, about $1,520 a day.
How the 2019 Contract Was Awarded
When the county last shopped for a jail food vendor, in 2019, it went through a formal process. Before issuing the request for proposals, the board adopted Order 41-2019, finding that the county could not feasibly feed the jail with its own staff: only 28 county employees ran the jail, the sheriff “has insufficient staff to currently operate the jail at full capacity without overtime costs,” and food service “requires special expertise in the areas of diet and nutrition to ensure constitutionally adequate meals are served.” State law requires that finding, or a written cost analysis, before a county contracts out services worth more than $250,000.
The 2019 order described food service for “up to 255 inmates daily,” including special diet meals.
The Jail’s Obligation
The new order notes the jail “is required by law to provide constitutionally adequate food services to adults in custody.” The same morning the order came up, commissioners recessed to conduct the county’s annual jail inspection at 1 p.m., according to the meeting agenda. The jail is funded in part by a voter-approved local option levy that will bring in about $4.2 million this year, 3.95 percent of all property taxes collected in the county, according to the county’s 2026 tax brochure. A citizens’ committee reviews how the levy money is spent, per the sheriff’s office.
Trinity Services Group describes itself as “a national leader in correctional food service” that works only with jails and prisons, according to its website.