Alaska prisons seek contractors for mental health care in Nome, Bethel, Ketchikan and Seward

Citing continued staffing shortages, the Alaska Department of Corrections seeks a contractor for mental health care at four prisons, allowing video visits at all but Seward's. Proposals are due at 2 p.m. Oct. 28.

They can hold up to 928 people: Anvil Mountain Correctional Center in Nome, Yukon-Kuskokwim Correctional Center in Bethel, Ketchikan Correctional Center and Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward. Statewide, the department says it remands about 28,000 people a year and holds about 4,500 in custody on any given day.

Only Spring Creek, the largest facility with 535 beds and a sub-acute psychiatric unit, a unit for people needing ongoing psychiatric care, must have clinicians on site Monday through Friday. At the other three, a contractor may mix telehealth with in-person care, with a floor of "at least monthly onsite visits." The department calls telehealth "essential for servicing rural facilities that are not accessible via the road system." Contract clinicians would screen people at booking, respond to crises, run therapy groups, make weekly segregation rounds (mental health checks in isolation) and teach suicide prevention to staff.

The request for proposals scores bidders on qualifications and price together but names no price. The division "has a limited budget for this project, and negotiations may be necessary," and any contract depends on a legislative appropriation. Cost carries 400 of 1,000 scoring points, and 100 go to an Alaska bidder preference. Bidders need five years of correctional behavioral health staffing experience. The department can end a contractor's work on 30 days' notice, including when permanent staff fill a vacancy.

The document contradicts itself twice: one section says contractors will draw from a shared funding pool "which will not be allocated to one contractor," while another anticipates "one (1) contract award"; one section says clinicians "must be licensed," while the deliverables section calls licensure preferred and sets a master's degree as the minimum, adding the department "will not provide clinical supervision toward licensure."

The shared-pool sentence appears word for word in a statewide solicitation the department issued Sept. 24, which covers all 13 facilities, these four included, and anticipates two to four contracts and 21 full-time clinicians. Neither says how the two would split these prisons.

The record for this contract is the department's own, with no input from people held in the four prisons, staff who work there, the Chief Mental Health Officer, the Legislature or the Alaska Ombudsman. It does not say how many positions are vacant or who currently provides care.

Questions are due Oct. 18, with a notice of intent to award Nov. 2 and a contract Nov. 12. The first term runs from about Jan. 1 through June 30, 2027, with three optional one-year renewals that could extend it to mid-2030. Bidders must register with procurement officer Allan Oyao to receive amendments.