Where is Mike Now? - Trust Fund Policy - FCI Berlin

This week, I was at FCI Berlin, New Hampshire as the Chair of the Trust Fund Joint Policy Committee.

The Trust Fund Joint Policy Committee (JPC) met at FCI Berlin to discuss the safety and training standards for the 4 million dollars worth of pallet scanners that the BOP purchased last year.  The vendor was going to conduct training on the pallet scanners at the FCI (adequate training on the scanners was part of the contract), and the JPC was supposed to be overseeing the training.

We had received scattered reports from the field of inconsistent training, including some sessions as short as 10 minutes long, or in some cases, no training provided at all.

There was also a report of high doses of radiation coming out of the tail end of the scanner as the pallet broke through the lead-lined safety curtain.  One of the vendor's trainers said. "You probably don't want to stand there when the pallet is coming out.".

 As we are with the Staff Search policy, we are trying to make the Agency include language that mirrors the Patient Care Policy when it comes to the use of radiological equipment; that means issuing a dosimeter film badge to each employee who works with an near any x-ray machine.

Unfortunately, the vendor (Astrophysics Inc.) couldn't get the brand new, $60,000.00 pallet scanner up and running; they said it needs a new circuit board from California.

We did get some work done with Trust Fund Manual policy language, however, and networked with the newly chartered Local.