Panel advances proposal to add parole officers
Baird said that under Hutchinson, the department has steadily increased funding and resources.
A proposal that would add 30 positions to the state Department of Community Correction in the coming fiscal year cleared a legislative panel Thursday over the objections of the state’s budget director.
The proposal would increase the number of parole and probation officer positions to 529 and total department positions to 1,485.
In a divided voice vote after 30 minutes of discussion, the Joint Budget Committee’s Personnel Subcommittee advanced the proposed amendment by Sen. Will Bond, D-Little Rock, to the department’s operations appropriation — House Bill 1082 — for fiscal 2019, which starts July 1.
The Joint Budget Committee is the next hurdle for Bond’s proposal.
Bond said Thursday that he wants the additional officers, at a cost of about $1.2 million, to reduce caseloads, based on a report from the Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Subcommittee in 2016.
“This has been a problem that stretches across administrations, not just the current administration. The current administration has done a lot of work on the issue,” he said. “But, if you have a roof leak and you fix two-thirds of your roof, you still have a roof leak.”
But state Budget Director Duncan Baird told lawmakers that the department has about 113 vacant positions, including in parole and probation.
“At this time, we don’t think the additional positions are necessary in the appropriation,” he said.
Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson has proposed increasing the department’s fiscal 2019 budget by $1.7 million, to $87.9 million.
Baird said that under Hutchinson, the department has steadily increased funding and resources.
Department Director Sheila Sharp said the funding increase in the governor’s budget covers 59 positions that were phased in.
“They have made a major difference in our caseloads,” she said. “I can tell you that we are so much better off under Gov. Hutchinson’s administration than we ever have been before. We think we are doing a pretty good job.”
Sharp said the department has 22 vacant probation and parole officers in the field but many of those are about to be filled.
“We do a really good job of keeping those filled, but they turn over. We are down to approximately 6 percent turnover in that classification, and 4½ years ago we were at 50 percent in some of our other areas, so we have made a lot of headway in keeping those positions filled,” she said.
“Finding applicants is not a problem for us now,” Sharp said. “In any industry, you are going to have normal turnover because our officers can go to work for the feds making $20,000 more as a probation officer, so we battle that in some situations.”
Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, a co-chairman of the subcommittee, said, “We have this huge need and we are filling it — not just fast enough.”
Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, said, “Just because we’ve not filled the positions we have now, I don’t think we should be non-aspirational about our safety. I respect what the governor says, but … we live in our communities. We are responsible for safety in our communities.”
“It’s not that we don’t have the money,” Bond said. “It’s just that we don’t want to spend the money on this priority.”
The governor has proposed placing $48 million in what he has called surplus general revenue in fiscal 2019 in a restricted reserve fund.
“If that restricted reserve fund is more important to the Legislature than probation and parole officers, I get it. I totally disagree, but that’s the choice for the Legislature to make,” Bond said.