CENTRAL FALLS — The governing board of the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, at the urging of its major bondholders, has hired a management consultant to determine whether operational and administrative improvements are necessary to make the troubled jail more financially secure.

MVF Consulting, LLC, of Middleton, Mass., is scheduled to begin its operational review on Tuesday and provide its findings to the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation. board in August.

The firm’s principal is Michael V. Fair, who served as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections for more than eight years.

Bill Fischer, the Wyatt board’s spokesman, said that the consulting firm will be paid $44,000.

“Mr. Fair will have unfettered access to the facility,” Fischer said. “From the board’s perspective, we want to cooperate with this audit fully.”

The hiring of an outside consulting firm has upset Wyatt’s administrators and correctional officers. Several, who did not want to speak on the record for fear of retribution, pointed out that a team from the Department of Justice conducted a Quality Assurance Review in February that gave the 700-bed city-owned jail an overall rating of “acceptable.”

A copy of the report, which was obtained by The Journal, concluded that the holding facility for federal detainees was in good standing.

“Employee interviews and observations revealed high levels of professionalism and responsiveness to the review team’s request for information,” the report states. “The social climate of the detainee population, as determined through detainee interviews and observation, indicates they were satisfied with their living conditions and staff responsiveness to individual needs.”

The Wyatt administrators and correctional officers contend another audit is unnecessary.

The Justice Department conducted its review following the death of a Chinese national while in Wyatt custody last summer and a series of moves that placed the jail in dire financial straits. In December, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed all of its 153 immigrant detainees and severed its contract with the jail.

As a result of the drop in population, the jail lost more than $1.7 million over the ensuing five months. The jail no longer was getting nearly $102 a day in government reimbursement for housing each of the detainees who were being held for illegally entering this country.

Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the detainee’s death and his family has filed a federal lawsuit against Wyatt, ICE and others. Meanwhile, the board fired the jail’s executive director and his real estate management firm, Avcorr Inc., of Warwick, and political turmoil has swirled around the appointment and termination of several board members.

Over the past six weeks, Warden Wayne Salisbury and Tammy Novo, the jail’s chief financial officer, have traversed the Northeast and they have been successful in getting more prisoners transferred to the Wyatt jail. As a result, the jail population has been averaging more than 620 prisoners per day.

Jail officials have said that they need a daily population of at least 600 prisoners to run the prison and pay bondholders about $8.8 million annually through 2035.

The bonds paid for the construction and expansion of the $106-million jail.

Still, the bondholders want an outside audit.

Fischer said that three of the tax-exempt bond funds managed by Oppenheimer Funds Inc. own $53.5 million of the bonds, making them the majority bondholder. Oppenheimer called for the outside audit following a default under the debt service coverage ratio covenant that is specified in the bond documents.

The default covered the year that ended on Dec. 31 and has continued in recent months.

In a letter to Bruce Corrigan, chairman of the CFDFC board, Christopher Weiler, a vice president at Oppenheimer, said the outside audit will provide bondholders with “an objective third-party assessment of the financial, managerial and operational condition of the facility.”

Fischer, the Wyatt board spokesman, said that Fair and his consulting firm will work closely with Joseph P. Moran, who was named the jail’s interim chief operating officer two months ago. Moran, who is the Central Falls police chief, has spent little time at Wyatt since his appointment.

“The audit could potentially result in changes in the management at Wyatt,” Fischer said. “Again, the board looks forward to this review and it expects that all personnel at Wyatt would cooperate fully with this process.”

bmalinow@projo.com