JAC Index011316pm1 January 13, 2016 PM Agenda: 160 – County and Prosecuting Attorneys 081 - Board of Parole 080- Department of Corrections 1/13/2016 1:02:24 PM Meeting called to order Joe Baron, Crook County Attorney Baron: Introduction of members In agreement with the Governor’s recommendation on the budget. Surplus in past biennium. 13 new judges and attorneys. 238000 drop in budget of state’s share. County and State split costs. ½ for each deputy county prosecuting attorney with a cap at 30,000 dollars. 2 counties are paid for entirely by the state of Wyoming. 9 judicial districts. If other 7 opted in, it would go from 6 M to 28 M. 78 deputy account attorneys, 21 elected. We support AG budget request. We receive service from the DCI officers, the crime lab and victim services. Victim services performs an exemplary audit. Connolly: Why don’t Laramie and Natrona County participate? Baron: It is a local political issue. For county to opt in to district system, county commissioners within the district must individually agree to opt in. Statute requires a district attorney system once the population reaches 60,000 in a county. Burns: Counties worried reelection of attorney from more populated county. Counties can hire as many asst. attorneys as they want and state is obligated to pay for half of it? Baron: Correct. Statute has a provision with a cap of 50%per deputy up to $30,000. County Commissioners make the decision on number of asst. attorney’s. You provide about 1/3 of the cost of the office, benefits, Burns: Does the $30,000 include the benefits? Baron: No, that goes only to salary. Burns: if assistant is paid beyond 60,000 then county is picking up the excess? Baron: yes Burns: Question about work and county portion of costs. Baron: Bulk of work is criminal although the civil side has increased from about 5% to well over half. In most offices, there is no distinction of type of work. In a few offices, there is an attorney who only does civil work and is a backup for juvenile and criminal. Burns: Those attorneys only doing civil work still have 50% of salary paid by state. Baron: To the best of my knowledge. 1/13/2016 1:16:34 PM End of agency 160 1/13/2016 1:17:10 PM Agency 081 – Board of parole – Director Dan Fetsco Fetsco: Similar to last budget. 100 series increase for merit based salaries. One exception request for 2600 to cover increased hourly rates for IT assistance from ETS. Page 12. Projects being worked on by the Board: Application for technical assistance. We were selected. Traveled to Washington,DC. Developing a new parole guidebook for our members to provide written guidance to our members and to increase transparency with the public. Last summer approached by production company to do a documentary on parole from the board’s angle. Documentary coming out in April on Discovery ID. There are 7 parole board members appointed for 6 years. We travel in groups of 3 to the penal institutions. Travel to work centers. Conduct approx. 30 hearings per day. We can still afford to meet with our inmates one-to-one. Many members are ex-law-enforcement. Problems with audio. Been with board for 9 years, probably been to 10,000 hearings. My job is to advise the members. Harshman: Travel by car or state airplane Fetsco: Use the plane about half of the time. Members are spread across the state. We fly around the state and pick up everybody around the state, arrive at institution by 8 am, complete it that day and fly people back that night Harshman: 150 per day Fetsco: yes. Harshman: Report on costs, miles flown follow up. Were you on Parole Board when inmates were housed out of state. Fetsco: For part of it. We did fly to out of state institutions. Video still requires travel so 3 board members are in private location. Harshman: Webpage of your Agency. In report, let us know where board members are from. Car is mileage payment Fetsco: mileage, food, jpte; Richards: 133,000 dollars, shy of 66,000 miles, 177 legs Harshman: In report explain how the leg works, travel to site to be picked up Connolly: Congratulations on the grant. Program? Fetsco: Handbook being written in conjunction with Dept. of Corrections and national parole board Connolly: Performance measures. Recidivism Fetsco: % of offenders completing sentence on successful parole, I will get back to you. Three times greater percentage for paroles who finish sentence than offenders who do not have parole, to not return to prison. Connolly: Fetsco: PEW program. Some proposals, some of the Parole Board members do not agree with the DOC. Example given. Revocation processes. Members feel some proposals impinge on board authority. Giving street time up front automatically instead of taking it away will reduce prison time. Connolly: Public safety is your number 1 concern, issues of rehabilitation, decrease of costs for the criminal justice system Greear: Numbers from annual report: 54% of population completes sentence on parole. 36% complete sentence. 19% return rate for those that go on parole versus 28% rate for those who do not. Burns: What is CTC and VAG Fetsco: Cheyenne Transitional Center, Volunteers of America in Gillette Burns: you have button for getting voting rights. Can you add a button for expungement? What % from parole hearings get paroled. Fetsco: Around 57% without regard for eligibility. Some inmates we see are not eligible. Number is higher if you take out meetings with inmates that are not eligible. Burns: bill changing inmates receiving credit while on parole. Fetsco: Primary reason for waiving parole, they don’t want to go on the street with any strings attached. 1/13/2016 1:46:16 PM End of agency 081 – Board of parole. 1/13/2016 1:57:08 PM Meeting called to order. Ross: Welcome to the agency, give overview. Lampert: Bob Lampert, Steve Lindley, Jeff Wiggins, Carp Carpenter, Coltan Harrington, Dawn Sides, not here. ER to convert religious coordinator positions, Ross: page 177 Lampert: There is a summary on page 16, refers to page numbers in budget. Convert religious coordinator positions to full time employees. Affordable Care Act requires certain contract employees to be treated like regular employees and be entitled to benefits. Governor recommendation to make AWAC positions eligible for benefits. 100 series Hibbard: We did not want to impact profile or chase dollars. We are not asking for money to address. ACA issue. Thank the AG office for all the meetings about this. Appreciate committee extension and LSO cooperation. Michael: Leo Caselli represents AandI. Topic is what differentiates contractor from employee. Every agency identified all positions that could be questioned for compliance with the ACA. Training of each HR person about parameters. Caselli: Play or Pay provision of ACA has the greatest impact. You can offer affordable coverage to your FT employees (30 hours per week or 130 hours per month). There is no government exception to this provision. If large employees do not offer coverage, penalties kick in. $250 per month for small penalty. Aggregate penalty: If we do not offer coverage to 95% of employees, there is a substantial penalty. Summer interns, contract employees. On track to 95% when we became concerned with independent contractors. Looked at 900 series funds. Can exclude independent contractors from the 95% tally. Found instances of people being paid out of 900 series funds but looked like employees. DOC chaplains and religious coordinators were working 30 to 35 hours per week, supplied with offices and uniforms. DOC Chaplains. Enough concern with the legal issues, that our office would recommend these people be made employees Hibbard: DOC asked for FT. We recommended AWAC as they can get insurance for single. Least amount of exposure to dollars for that class. Open enrollment in Oct. and Nov. Person needs an offer to not be in the 95%. Total exposure to enrollment was $1.1 M Breakdown of GF, federal funds and other funds. Executive branch has $367,000 exposure. Connolly: TPO1? Hibbard: Temporary position Connolly: Difference? Hibbard: AWAC is at will and TPO1 is temporary employee Agar: TPO1 is usually seasonal. Hibbard: Community Colleges had 20 with exposure of $422,482. I did my calculations using 12 month working so my numbers are conservative. This is a snapshot in time. This process will be ongoing. We may be exposed to situation where contractor is really an employee. We are not going to change the budget. DOC is asking to move money. No changes from 900 series to be used for payroll unless it is approved by JAC in a budget for transparency reasons.. If relationship is broke, we will manage it within the budget. Connolly: 2 weeks into hearings and this is the first we have heard of this. Will DOC be only request? Hibbard: Two other occasions where I asked for conversation to be stalled until AG could be here and we did not have open enrollment statistics. There have been two other agencies. Greear: Working more than 30 hours per week, supplied office and uniform. What other elements to move from independent to employee status. Caselli: IRS Common law test put into ACA. Usually reserved for areas like paying unemployment or being responsible for employees’ actions. The key thing we have looked at has been supervision and control. With a lot of professional services contracts like for doctors, lawyers, auctioneers, IRS has specifically said if you are not lodged in chain of command, you are not an employee. Greear: Supervisor and do you control their work? Faith based services provided. Not the way it has been? Caselli: Attorneys with office who looked at those employees and contracts have said that more likely than not, there is a problem with chain of command and supervision. Greear: Did we look at adjusting contracts and scope of work? Caselli: Looked at cutting hours, etc. Hibbard: In case of clergyman cannot do that. Lindly: Largest group of volunteers are religious volunteers. We recognize 13 or 14 religious groups, most litigious areas. Nicholas: Who are those coordinators? It would have been easy to say, you will not be here 30 weeks and will be independent. You don’t want to do so. Coordinator of events within facility is different thing. Caselli: Chaplains weren’t provided uniforms. We looked at if they were lodged within the chain of command. Independent contractors working more than 30 hours per week, regularly scheduled and in chain of command. If there is a means to change that, I will defer. Lindly: Explanation of religious coordinator staff. Full time is necessary to meet needs. Approx. 10 years ago, sought to make them state employees. Protected area due to constitutionality. Hibbard: We have a significant lift on reporting to meet IRS requirement. IRS expects all information to be reported on the same EIN number. When employees move throughout state government, they may cross that threshold. It is another reason to be conservative Ross: AWAC entitled to retirement? Hibbard: No. That is why we did not give FT employee status. Connolly: Do 7 Chaplains believe they can be as effective becoming DOC employees? More effective with professional contract making them more independent? Lindly: I have not heard that conversation. Challenge was getting people into this important position when there were no benefits. Nicholas: Do these 7 people provide religious consultation and then oversea use of room, times and locations? Lindly: It involves six people, one at each facility and a native American spiritual advisor. Responsibility to ensure that all groups can meet somewhere. They sometimes provide spiritual services within their faith group. Enforce security issues. Greear: I understand that coordination is a major part of duties. As an employee, they have a duty to report things inmates tell them up the chain of command. That is a concern. Hibbard: Do not have to provide insurance until offer has been made and accepted. Greear: If we make them employees, we must remove from their duties, chaplain services. They must become true coordinators. Can one person cover two facilities? Lindly: Our policy prohibits from proselytizing. Deemed to be nondenominational. Individual conversations with inmates, I don’t know. Harshman: ACA issue Ross: Any doubts? Harshman: Michael: Without individual case, it is a fool’s errand. Nicholas: Did they ask how to draft contracts without becoming an employee? Michael: I was not in meetings. Team did them. I am sure the agencies were given the options they had, how not to pay for the benefits. Hibbard: First conversation, first estimate was $15 m. AG office got agencies actionable to make these decisions. Surprised at WYDOT, not one is actionable. Knepper: Unemployment laws – comes down to control. DOC is the one we are discussing because by nature of their activity they must have a significant amount of control. Key for us is to engage on facts of each individual employee so agency had to make decision. Diffuse project. Tests in law. Weigh a bunch of factors and courts do not tell you which ones matter. No clear rule of law. Example: Volunteer singers in opera were employees for purposes of labor law because conductor was in position of control and received $8 for parking. Lampert: Besides the control elements, sometimes they lead faith groups. They lead all faith groups, not just their own. Inmates are not allowed to serve as faith leaders. Ross: Thanks to AG and others. 1/13/2016 2:54:07 PM Break. 1/13/2016 3:54:12 PM 080 Department of Corrections Lampert: $238.5M budget. $14.4M cost savings returned to General Fund. $11M vacancy savings. 2435 prisoners. Out of bed availability in 2020. 1284 positions, 223 vacancies. 187 POST positions. Vacancies have increased over the past year. Use 100 series savings into recruiting and other operational needs. Achieved savings with travel costs. Must provide safe atmosphere, medical costs, and various basic needs. Eliminate educational support programs for inmates would be only other areas to reduce, however, success rates with correctional programs are good. Low rates of return to prison in nation. Harshman: Any more $$ to reduce? Lampert: Will be more vacancy reversions by end of biennium. Expansion of Medicaid would reduce medical costs $1M annually. Not eligible for Medicaid during incarceration. Wasserburger: 67% success rate of paroles not returning to prison. Lindly: Returning include substance abuse. Wasserburger: 75% of those who return have substance abuse, how many due to cannabis? Lindly: Alcohol most common, meth and marijuana top ones, including heroin and prescription drugs currently. Lampert: One enterprise unit, commissary. $2M operating funds. Pages 21-35, various institutions all have them. Do purchase some items locally Connolly: Exception request? Lampert: Exception request for increased spending authority of $150,000 at Honor Farm. Inmate Assistance, pages 36-56. Operates on proceeds from inmate telephone calls. Pays monitoring of system and telephone costs. Pages 37-39, central office, re-entry purposes. 40-43, honor camp. $52,820 additional spending authority, exception request, one-time monies. Pages 40-46, Women’s center. Pages 47-50, Honor Farm, $60,000 additional spending authority. Pages 50-53, Pen Pages 54-56, Women’s center. Inmate Medical Pages 57-67. $42M. Inmates typically 10 years older medically than chronological age. Must self purchase over the counter drugs, negotiated a better price for some out of facility surgeries. Pages 58-59, Honor Camp. Pages 60-61, Women’s Center, reduce funding by $100,000 general fund. Pages 62-63, Honor Farm. Pages 64-65. Reduce by $500,000 at pen Pages 66-67, reduce funding at medium correctional institution by $606,415 Substance Abuse Pages 68, tobacco settlement reduction of $313,229. Stubson: treatment early in term, or later? Lampert: based on level of treatment required, usually last 18 months – 3 years of imprisonment. Burns: success rates? Lindley: 63-70% success rates after 3 years release from prison Connolly: tobacco settlement funds reduction? Lampert: Will have to make some hard decisions, focus on high risk behavior inmates. Outpatient level treatment will be cut by 80%. Risk factor will increase. pages 71-72. Women’s Center, reduction of $393,548 tobacco. Pages 75-76, Honor Farm, reduction of $507,305 tobacco. Pages 77-78, Honor Farm Pages 79, Pen, reduction of 518,734 tobacco Pages 81-82, medium, reduction of $539,199 tobacco Pages 83, Corrections Operations Page 86, 13 vehicles, 22 cell phones, high out of state, national meetings Pages 87-89, exception request, position reallocation to security threat group. No additional funding. Connolly: local gang members? Lampert: mostly local, with northern CO ties Education Pages 91-95. 1/13/2016 5:15:57 PM Break 1/13/2016 5:28:00 PM Lampert: pages 91-95. Exception request of position reallocation to correctional program manager $172,142. Relocated to central office from Casper facility. Pages 97-98 Investigations Unit Page 99-101. Offender Management Pages 102-104. Out of facility inmate housing. Exception request for $16,133,000 for 1 year housing out of state if need to repair penitentiary. Governor denied due to lack of information. Full disclosure, $18.4M annually for 700 inmates 150 inmate displacement, $5M annually 400 displacement, $7.5M annually, reduced operations at pen, moved to other state facilities. Flex authority to spend 100 series monies if needed with governor approval and regular reports to JAC. Recruiting Pages 105-107. $1.6M. Section 308 authority be extended. Pages 108-110. Training Academy. Pages 111-116. Central Services. Exception request for offender case management tracking system placement. $13.7M, denied by governor. Exception request for WSP server and data storage replacement, $13,989, governor approval LSRA. Exception request for workstation and laptop replacements, $494,450. $100,000 LSRA approval by governor. Exception request for network switch replacements, $197,878. Governor approval from LSRA. Exception request for position reallocation to an office support specialist. Pages 120-121, programs/services – CVS. Health Services, reduction of $200,000 general fund. Secure Treatment Facility, reduction of $249,348 general fund. Exception request for position reallocation to Correctional Program Manager. 1/13/2016 5:56:53 PM Lampert: Page 126-129, reduction in this section in tobacco settlement funds.$16,147 amended budget amount. Pages 130 -132 Sex Offender Treatment/Management. Initial data shows the inmates who receive sex offender treatment prior to release are less likely to reoffend. Statistics of recidivism. Stubson: Recidivism rates. Was next offense sex related? Lampert: None of the inmates who received treatment were back in for a sex related charge. Harshman: How many inmates? $2.5 M Lampert: 126 have completed treatment Harshman: length Lampert: 18 months Harshman: 2.5 M will pay for about 70 – 75. Lampert: At $14 per day Harshman: cost per inmate for entire treatment Lampert: 14 per day x days Connolly: Who are you paying for this? Lampert: Vendor is Westcare of Wyoming Stubson: Tryi to get people in at the end of their stay. Do you have capacity for everyone who needs it or are some released without treatment? Lampert: 2.5 M pays for residential and intensive outpatient program . 28% of population is in for sex offender. Treatment is at end of stay. Wasserburger: how many employees does that Vendor have? Lampert: Mr. Shannon believes it is 8. They are clinicians. Lindly: 12 dollars per day per person. 14 per day per person for residential treatment in addition to housing costs. Lampert: Clinician hourly rate is $150 Greear: 135 in outpatient treatment Lampert: Currently in program Greear: how many in residential Lampert: 64 currently. We have had 129 complete the program Greear: rates not matching, please check Lindly: Will verify. Greear: I am coming up with numbers that are double Nicholas: Follow up of breakdown. Types of sexual offenses, what is the criteria? Lampert: These are our highest risk sex offenders, risk to reoffend. Risk factor updated throughout the treatment program. Nationwide rate is 10%. Pedophile rate is 90%. Wasserburger: Wyoming women’s center. What does a day look like? Lampert: It is a therapeutic community. Confidential group centered. Individual therapy. School, work, program. Outpatient does not necessarily follow the in-patient treatment. Connolly: 900 series report as related to West Care Wyoming. Numbers do not add up. Lampert: They do not. We returned $ 797,000+ to that unit. We anticipate an increase. Wasserburger: Is the treatment mandatory or can an inmate opt out? Lampert: Not mandatory but prisoner has to admit to their offense. If program is not completed, could be subject to disciplinary action. Wasserburger: Of those who did not go into program, rate? Lampert: 25% for those with no treatment. Completion of full 18 months is 16%. For those who completed some treatment it was 23%. Out of the 25% recidivism, 55% of their new crimes were due to a new sexual offense. If they completed the program, none came back for a sexual offense. Nicholas: question Lampert: will follow up Page 134 – request for additional spending authority of $290,550. Page 137 report, incentive pay impacts 100 series Pages 138 and 139 - 2 positions, Governor recommended approval Page 140 - 45+ Million, 192 employees. Handles community corrections, probation and parole. Vehicles. 6500 to 7000 individuals, average 1 out of 83 is under supervision of the DOC. Harshman: How does the 1 out of 83 compare to other states? Lampert: I don’t know, think the middle. 3 ER = page 142 for 23200 for replacement of network switches. Gov. rec of funds coming from LSRA, not GF. Page 143 85143 for office circuit switches, gov. rec. of funds from LSRA. Last ER is for position change. Revised budget amount on page 148 Stubson: Electronic monitoring in this unit. 80 units. 6500 people in this program. Is that technology used to its full extent? Lampert: This is risk based. Targeted approach. Lindly: Curfew control application, need staff to monitor, ratio of 1 to 25. Stubson: Have you seen reduction in expenses related to this? Change in technology? Lampert: Increased competition. Bulk of cost is not the monitor but the monitoring by staff. 4.45 daily rate for each monitor Page 148 – unit 2012 Adult community corrections. Centers in Gillette, Cheyenne, Casper. Avg. cost right at $40 per day. ER = Funding for 18 additional contracted beds. $951,686 which included cost of beds and increase in daily rate. Governor approved for the beds, not the change in daily rate. Page 153 – Split sentencing ER request of 200,000. Governor approved half. Would return for other half in the supplemental session. Stubson: What accounts for disparity in daily cost of 60 to 123? Lampert: Sheriff’s say 60 does not cover costs but they would rather have that amount than none, so agree to split sentencing. Harshman: There is significant capacity in our county jails around the state? Lampert: Varies by county Connolly: Do you negotiate with each county? Lampert: Rate is set by statute. Lindly: Sheriff must okay. Lampert: I do not see cross jurisdictional split sentencing. Page 186 – Community substance abuse – Reduction in tobacco funds Connolly: split sentencing. Can it be done at the end of the sentence? Move an offender from prison to county jail. Lampert: We have the authority to contract with jail. The jail must be fully compliant with prison act. Stubson: Compliance result of what? Lampert: National federal law. We must meet requirements of law or jeopardize federal funds. Jails do not have incentive for compliance. We contract with the ones who are. Unit 2020, pages 158 Addicted Offender Accountability 1.6+M budget, GF and tobacco funds. Completes field services division Ross: Would it be possible to have you come back in the morning? How much longer do you think to finish? We will start at 8 in the morning Richards: I think a lot of people will be coming for the CREG report, one hour Ross: Corrections at 9 Harshman: 8:30 Ross: Please return in the morning. 1/13/2016 6:46:44 PM