Scott Walker's budget would shrink parole agency to 1 employee

MADISON - The state's parole system for roughly 3,000 long-time state inmates would drop from eight employees to just one, under Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal.

As a lawmaker in the late 1990s, Walker championed the state's truth in sentencing law to ensure tough sentences on convicted criminals.

Now as governor, Walker wants to sharply downsize the system for handling the potential release of state inmates who are still subject to the rules that were in effect prior to the debut of truth in sentencing in 2000. The move is in keeping with other actions of the governor, such as his decision not to issue pardons.

If the state loses some of its staff experienced in judging the risk of paroling inmates, the effect will likely be more people remaining in prison for longer, Madison attorney Lester Pines said.

"The default position is going to be it's too dangerous to release this person," said Pines, who has worked on pardon issues.

Pines, a Democrat, has sued the Walker administration a number of times over constitutional concerns, but in this case a legal challenge would be difficult to carry off unless a plaintiff could first show that the proposal was actually resulting in delays for parolees, he said.

At least 2,000 state inmates have served enough of their sentences that they can ask to be paroled — a process that requires a hearing for the inmate and for his or her victims. The great majority have served long sentences for violent crimes. Some have been denied parole 10 times or more.

Right now, the state Parole Commission has a staff of civil servants who make release recommendations to a parole chairman who is appointed by Walker. The agency has a budget of $1.2 million a year and 13 positions authorized to it, but it spends only a portion of its budget and has only eight positions currently.

Walker's proposal would cut even more:

• The stand-alone Parole Commission would be replaced by a single worker, a director of parole who also would be appointed. 
• The new parole director would work within the Bureau of Classification and Movement. That bureau determines where inmates need to be housed within Department of Corrections prisons based on their security risk.
• The Parole Commission's budget would be entirely eliminated — the Department of Corrections would have to fund the new parole director's salary out of its existing budget. There would no longer be civil servants working parole cases unless the Department of Corrections assigned them to do so. 

Right now, there's no backlog for hearings for inmates eligible for parole and for their victims.

Tristan Cook, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said his larger agency would still assign enough staff to keep pace with the work.

"The proposal will maintain the integrity of the parole function while saving taxpayer dollars and accounting for workload changes. DOC anticipates that the proposal will continue prompt reviews of parole-eligible inmates," Cook said.

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Hidden costs

But the proposal could actually cost taxpayers money in the long term, said Jerry Hancock, a former prosecutor who advocates overhauling the prison system.

Hancock, who previously worked as a deputy district attorney in Dane County and an administrator in the state Department of Justice, said that housing inmates eligible for parole costs the state far more than the Parole Commission does.

For instance, taxpayers pay more than $15 million a year to house parole-eligible inmates who are kept in minimum-security facilities. Many of these inmates travel routinely outside the prison walls to serve on work details and related activities, Hancock said.

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Hancock now serves as the director of the Prison Ministry Project of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Madison. He said he's also concerned that under the budget proposal the Parole Commission would no longer be independent of the Department of Corrections.

"It would eliminate any semblance of an independent Parole Commission," Hancock said.

One area where the state will have to work to save money is on the $39,500 in new cubicles and other furniture that the Parole Commission ordered for its handful of employees in recent weeks.

The agency made one furniture order Jan. 13 and the second Feb. 7, the day before Walker proposed eliminating the small commission in his budget bill. The two-order total amounted to nearly $5,000 worth for each of the commission's eight workers.

Cook said the Department of Corrections was able to cancel the Feb. 7 order, which was for $2,606 worth.

The larger January order for $36,861 couldn't be canceled, he said.

"Rather than waste the materials and work that had already been done, DOC will complete the furniture and hold it for sale to another customer. The Parole Commission will not receive the furniture," Cook said.