NECEDAH (WRN) - A federal judge says a blind food service vendor is not entitled to $225,000 in state tax money, after a dining contract was canceled at Fort McCoy. An arbitration panel awarded the money to Janet Dickey of Necedah. It was supposed to make up for the income Dickey lost after the Army canceled her agreement to manage the food service at the base near Sparta. The panel blamed a state official for not supervising Dickey’s work properly. She worked under a contract the state received, as part of a program that puts blind people to work. Federal Judge Barbara Crabb said states cannot be forced to pay damages under federal law that created the military program. The state had challenged the arbitrator’s award in federal court. Later there were reports that Dickey’s food service never some of the meals they were supposed to – and when they did, a lack of food safety procedures sometimes resulted in bugs on the soldiers’ plates. The state said the bugs were brought in because the fort lacked air conditioning in all but two of its buildings at the time. Fort McCoy has since improved those facilities.
