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FPI Public Notices

Board of Directors Letter to Representative Hoekstra


Washington, DC 20534
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November 8, 2002
The Honorable Peter Hoekstra United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Congressman Hoekstra:
We again want to thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to share your thoughts and recommendations with us.
As we mentioned, each Board member is committed to addressing the concerns of the private sector and to achieving a mutually agreeable solution. We appreciate your commitment to work with us toward that end. Pursuant to the comments you and others made at our meeting, the Board has taken the following steps:
1. The practice of "pass-through", whereby orders taken by FPI with the intent of producing them with inmate labor are later fulfilled by FPI purchasing the finished goods directly from one of FPI’s private sector business partners, has been terminated, effectively immediately. If circumstances preclude FPI from delivering an order by the customer due date, for which FPI has heretofore occasionally employed the "pass through" practice, our new policy is that the customer will be advised that they may either accept a late FPI delivery of the delinquent portion of the order or may request that FPI waive its mandatory source for that portion of the order, which request will be immediately granted by FPI staff. The notification to the customer and the customer’s decision will be documented in writing and a summary of these instances will be provided to the Board at each meeting.
2. All future Board decisions on new products and services, or expanded production of same, will be made at open, public board meetings.
3. Any future market analyses on products or services presented to the Board will provide for direct input from industry representatives. An "independent" analysis approach was suggested and fully considered, but we believe that the ultimate goal is to ensure that all affected parties have direct input into the analyses. I should also mention that one commenter suggested that the commercial market for a particular product not be taken into account when developing the analyses. Current FPI statute requires that each market analysis include, "the size of the Federal Government and non-Federal Government markets for the product." The extent to which the information about the non-Government market is taken into account in the final decision is, of course, up to the Board.
4. The Board will comprehensively review the market share issues across all FPI products and services. This will include a review of the current definition of "specific product", the definition of "reasonable share of the market", and the current market share for each product and service. Future proposals for new services or service expansions will be evaluated to review both market share and potential private sector impact.
5. A complete review of current business partnerships across all products and services will be conducted.
6. The Board will conduct a complete review of FPI’s commercial services initiative.
The reviews referred to in #4, 5 and 6 will be done in a public forum, with an opportunity for input from all affected parties.
7. The Board will initiate an outreach effort to the small business community, including the House Small Business Committee and the Small Business Administration. The Board is convinced that the small business community can be an ally of a properly structured prison industries program, and we intend to strive toward that goal.
8. The Board will also seek input from the Department of Commerce, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the International Trade Commission on the "repatriation" issue, to ensure that proposals considered by the Board are not in conflict with existing trade treaties or statutes.
We have attached a tentative schedule of future Board meetings to address the aforementioned issues. As you can see, we have a big job ahead of us but we are persuaded that the sooner, more openly, and more thoroughly we address the issues, the more likely a consensus solution will emerge.
We believe that nothing will contribute more to the future success of the Federal Prison Industries program than improved relationships between the Board, FPI staff, the private sector and the Congress. Cooperation, communication, and trust cannot be legislated but once these are improved, a consensus solution can be codified.
We also want to extend an open invitation to you and your staff to visit one or more Federal Prison Industries factory operations. The several of us who have already done so believe that this experience is invaluable in the effort to gain a first-hand understanding of how the work program operates.
Again, we thank you for your time and valuable input. We look forward to working closely with you and your staff over the next several months. In the meantime, if you have any questions, or if we can provide further information, please don’t hesitate to contact any of us.
Sincerely,