SOUTH BEND — The University of Notre Dame has struck a deal with the St. Joseph County Health Department to conduct its own food safety inspections and keep the reports from the public.

The agreement comes as the short-staffed health department has struggled to perform the recommended number of inspections for restaurants and other food establishments.

Although the department will still do initial inspections for new or remodeled food establishments at Notre Dame, all routine inspections of restaurants, dining halls and other eateries will be done by the university.

The health department also will investigate consumer food complaints at Notre Dame, such as restaurants on campus, and will receive “summaries” of routine inspections from the university. It also has the right to audit inspections.

But while inspection reports will be given to the department, they would be “private documents” not “accessible to the general public,” according to the agreement.

The deal, signed by both parties last month, runs until Aug. 1, 2019.

The Indiana Health Department says the county health department has the right to outsource inspections to Notre Dame. But the state’s public access counselor, who reviews complaints about open records, says the university’s inspection reports can’t be kept secret.

The counselor, Luke Britt, said any document “created or received” by the county health department is a public record, so reports provided by Notre Dame to the county have to be publicly available.

“I can’t think of anything that would keep it confidential,” Britt said. “It doesn’t matter that it’s a private university ... I don’t see this being any different than if the health department said, ‘Golden Corral, now you’re self-policing.’ “

Steve Key, executive director of the Hoosier State Press Association, also raised concerns about Notre Dame conducting its own inspections.

“It’s a head-scratcher,” he said. “How do you decide which corporations or nonprofits do their own inspections? Are they saying, ‘Notre Dame, we know you’ll be a good inspector and close yourself down if there’s a problem with sanitary conditions, but we’re not going to trust the family-owned, independent and little restaurant to do their own inspection?’ “

The health department, Key said, doesn’t have “any vested interest” regarding whether a “restaurant should be open or closed temporarily to clean up a mess ... You don’t ask the fox to guard the hen house.”

The county Board of Health, which oversees the health department, is set to vote on the agreement at a meeting today. It’s unclear why the vote is scheduled, however, because the agreement has already taken effect and doesn’t require board approval.

In a prepared statement, university spokesman Dennis Brown said, “The county health department approached Notre Dame earlier this year asking that we conduct our own inspections. We are willing to do that.”

But he added that the agreement that was approved “contains substantial errors, including language concerning access to public records.”

Brown declined to provide further information, however, about issues Notre Dame has with the agreement, and it’s unclear if officials will consider revising it.

The Tribune on Tuesday could not reach the Board of Health’s president, Dale Deardorff, or its attorney, David Keckley, for comment. Carolyn Smith, the department’s food service director, who signed the agreement, was out of the office.

Board of Health member Heidi Beidinger-Burnett, a faculty member at Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health, said she was aware of the agreement but didn’t know inspection reports would be confidential.

“What’s new to me is that reports would remain confidential and be treated differently,” she said. “I certainly have questions about that.”

She added that she doesn’t recall if the Board of Health received the agreement from the department’s staff for review before it was approved last month.

The department’s food services division — which inspects permanent, mobile and temporary food establishments countywide — is authorized to have seven food safety inspection officers. But since 2014, it has been below that mark because of retirements and employees leaving for other jobs. It currently has six officers.

In 2017, the department’s food safety officers conducted about 2,500 routine inspections — down from 2,800 in 2016.

The department has said that although establishments with “complex food handling” still get at least one inspection per year, the recommended number of two to three annual inspections has not been possible since 2013; that year, the department conducted nearly 3,400 inspections.

Kurt Janowsky of the Navarre Hospitality Group, which operates several area restaurants, including Cafe Navarre and O’Rourke’s Public House. He said he doesn’t take issue with the department’s agreement with Notre Dame, which has the staff needed to do inspections.

If Notre Dame “finds any violations — just like if the health department finds violations in one of my restaurants — they’ll correct those, so I don’t have a problem with it,” he said.