Successful Budget Legislation, 2013

Juvenile Justice | Indigent Defense | Facility Closures | Safely Reducing Incarceration | Confinement & Reentry | Jail Standards

Below are key components of the state’s budget, SB 1 [Williams; Effective September 1, 2013], pertaining to juvenile and criminal justice.

Juvenile Justice

In an effort to defeat early attempts to drastically cut funds from local juvenile probation services, practitioners, youth, and advocates alike banded together to inform legislators about the significant need for more—not less—state funding. Attempts were also made to close multiple state secure facilities, which would further increase the financial burden on local communities and result in a mass transfer of youth to other facilities in a very short time.

However, by the conclusion of the 2013 legislative session, stakeholders reached a compromise. Specifically, policy-makers appropriated $327 million solely for Community Juvenile Justice for the 2014-2015 biennium, 9% of which is dedicated to serving youth with mental health needs. Furthermore, policy-makers chose to close one of Texas’ six state secure facilities for youth.

TCJC considers these outcomes a win, as they fall in line with specific components of sustaining juvenile justice reform in Texas. The closure of a state secure facility and the re-alignment of funds to serve youth within local communities, especially youth with the highest needs (e.g., kids with mental health needs), are necessary in helping the Texas Juvenile Justice Department become an effective front-end agency.

Key Budget Riders

The following riders provide additional or more specific information about the use of juvenile justice funding:

• Rider 28: Reporting Requirements to the Legislative Budget Board: Per this rider, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department must begin annually reporting on prevention and intervention programs, including their utilization and effectiveness. The Department implemented prevention and Intervention services more than a year ago, and they are limited in scope. These reporting requirements will provide the Department with the necessary data to determine whether the programs are meeting the needs of youth.

• Rider 32: Juvenile Justice Department Institutional Capacity: This rider imposes an institutional cap on the number of beds the state is allowed to operate within state secure facilities. As the agency moves forward in reaching its goal of becoming a front-end entity, caps such as this one are crucial in facilitating the Department’s prioritization of community-based programs and services. The cap for the 2014-2015 biennium has been set at 1,356 beds, not including halfway house-facilities operated by the Department, or contract facilities.

• Rider 33: Local Assistance: This rider designates funds ($150,000 in FY 2014 and $144,000 in FY 2015) and requires two-full time employees of Central Administration in each fiscal year to evaluate and improve programming at the local level. With this designation, local probation departments will be given much-needed assistance in ensuring that the programming and treatment being offered to their youth are well designed, implemented, and evaluated, and ultimately effective.

• Rider 35: Facility Closure: This rider requires at least one state secure youth facility to be shut down. The Department must identify which facility should be closed, determine the needs of the youth population in that facility, and create a transition plan—with treatment components—for the youth who will be impacted. The Department must present the plan to the Legislative Budget Board no later than September 1, 2013.

• Rider 36: Mental Health Services: This rider creates a new line item, A.1.7., within Community Juvenile Justice, specifically for mental health services for youth being supervised by local juvenile probation departments. This new, greatly needed funding stream will help probation departments serve youth with the highest needs. Collectively, more than $25 million has been allocated to this line item for the 2014-2015 biennium.

Indigent Defense

The Texas Indigent Defense Commission awards grants and much-needed technical assistance to Texas’ 254 counties on issues related to defense systems and models, helping counties develop and maintain quality, cost-effective indigent defense systems that meet the needs of local communities.

Prior to Texas’ 2011 Legislative Session, the Commission was permitted to roll forward the unexpended balance in its Fair Defense Account every biennium; since then, the Commission’s unexpended funds—intended for indigent defense—have been held by the State as a means to balance the state budget.

This session, policy-makers allocated approximately $48 million for FY 2014 and $31 million for FY 2015 to the Commission, which effectively restores all funding designated for indigent defense purposes.

Facility Closures

Policy-makers’ re-prioritization of corrections strategies has built momentum for facility closures over the past two legislative sessions. In 2011, Texas closed a prison for the first time (Sugar Land Unit); during this recent 2013 legislative session, budget-makers targeted two private facilities for closure, which will occur in the coming biennium, as per the following rider:

• Rider 64: Close Private Prisons: This rider requires TDCJ to reduce correctional facilities bed capacity to contain costs as they pertain to “Contract Prisons and Privately Operated State Jails,” and “Residential Pre-Parole Facilities.” When making reductions in bed capacity, TDCJ must consider the following: (a) projected incarceration demand for correctional facilities bed capacity; (b) safety and security issues; (c) inmate classification needs; (d) TDCJ staffing needs; (e) cost-effectiveness; (f) prioritization of state-owned facilities in lieu of privately operated contract facilities; and (g) any other information that TDCJ deems relevant. Based on these criteria, this rider will likely result in the closure of the Dawson State Jail (Dallas), and the Mineral Wells Pre-Parole Transfer Facility (North Texas).

Safely Reducing Incarceration

Policy-makers chose to continue and strengthen previous smart-on-crime reforms, once again proving their commitment to hardworking practitioners and ensuring the fidelity and success of responsible crime-reduction best practices – particularly diversions and other programs to reduce recidivism.

Specifically, probation and community-based programs were allocated approximately $298 million for FY 2014 and $301 million for FY 2015 (representing an approximate $41 million increase from last session), out of a total corrections budget of $3.1 billion for both FY 2014 and FY 2015.

Diversions funding has been allocated as follows:

• Basic Supervision: More than $110 million in FY 2014 and $113 million in FY 2015.
• Diversion Programs: Nearly $129 million in both FY 2014 and FY 2015.
• Community Corrections: Nearly $47 million in both FY 2014 and FY 2015.
• Treatment Alternatives to Incarceration Program: Nearly $12 million in both FY 2014 and FY 2015.

Special needs programs and services (primarily for individuals on probation or parole) received approximately $22 million per fiscal year.

Key Budget Rider

• Rider 40: Implement Commitment Reduction Plans: This rider requires the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to appropriate certain remaining funds towards the implementation of one or more commitment reduction plans; these plans were legislatively authorized in 2011 by SB 1055 to allow county probation departments to set target reduction goals that would safely cut the number of people from that county who will be sent to prison or state jail. Participating counties should receive an upfront, lump sum of the savings from projected commitment reductions to establish necessary programming; funds will then be apportioned to counties based on their continued performance and ability to achieve their desired goals.

Confinement & Reentry

The corrections budget is largely devoted to incarcerating felons, at $2.5 billion per fiscal year. Below, we have listed only those line items pertaining to treatment program, and rehabilitative and other services:

• Offender services ($14 million per year for FY 2014-15)
• Institutional services ($194 million for FY 2014 and $186 million for FY 2015)
• Unit and psychiatric care ($253 million for FY 2014 and $256 million for FY 2015)
• Hospital and clinical care ($167 million for FY 2014 and $171 million for FY 2015)
• Managed health care-pharmacy ($58 million for 2014 and $59 million for 2015)
• Health services ($4.8 million per year for FY 2014-15)
• Residential pre-parole facilities ($9 million per year for FY 2014-15)
• Academic/vocational training ($1.9 million per year for FY 2014-15)
• Treatment services (nearly $23 million per year for FY 2014-15)
• Substance abuse felony punishment ($57 million per year for FY 2014-15)
• In-prison treatment and coordination (nearly $35 million per year for FY 2014-15)

The corrections budget also allocates funding for Texas’ parole system:

• Approximately $26 million each fiscal year for the operation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles. This budget allocation allows the Board to continue its high level of productivity.
• $165 million in FY 2014 and $166 million in FY 2015 for the operation of the parole system, including supervision, halfway house facilities, and intermediate sanction facilities.

Key Budget Riders

• Rider 58: Improve TDCJ Ombudsman Reporting: The Ombudsman Program at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has prepared regular reports for review by TDCJ leadership on inquiries and responses – but not on the ultimate resolution of each inquiry. This rider requires TDCJ’s Ombudsman to provide regular, publicly available reports to the Governor and legislators on the number and types of inquiries made, and whether and how each inquiry was resolved. TDCJ’s Ombudsman shall submit the annual reports no later than December 1^st of each fiscal year for the preceding fiscal year’s activity.

• Rider 59: Improve TDCJ’s Parole and Reentry Reporting: This rider requires TDCJ’s Reentry and Integration Division and Parole Division to submit an annual joint report to the Governor and legislators on various items. These include: outcomes from parole officers and reentry coordinators, including their program/placement referrals and outcomes (in housing, medical care, treatment for substance abuse or mental illness, veterans services, basic needs, etc.); available and unavailable programs, services, resources, and benefits; common reentry barriers; and practitioner training opportunities. This report, which must be made publicly available, shall be submitted no later than December 1^st of each fiscal year for the preceding fiscal year’s activity.

• Rider 61: Study TDCJ Visitation Procedures: This rider requires TDCJ to perform or commission a study on ways to improve its visitation polices, with the end goal being policies that strengthen family ties, including by expanding areas that are child-friendly during visitation periods, and notifying individuals who are eligible to visit incarcerated persons that visitation has been cancelled or rescheduled. TDCJ must report the findings of the study to the Legislative Budget Board and the Governor no later than September 1, 2014.

• Rider 62: Track SAFPF Completion Rates: This rider requires TDCJ to track program completion rates of individuals in Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facilities (SAFPFs, which are structured treatment programs) to determine where improvements can be made and where resources should be allocated. Must report the findings to the Legislative Budget Board and the Governor no later than September 1^st of each even-numbered year.

• Rider 63: Provide Incarcerated Individuals with Useful Incarceration- or Reentry-Related Information: This rider requires TDCJ to make information continually available to inmates on various topics, including but not limited to innocence and wrongful convictions, inmate transfers, the health care services fee, prisoners’ civil rights, filing a grievance, requesting medical care, veterans services (pre- and post-release), child support, and reentry-related services, including information on community-based programs and services available in the areas in which an individual plans to be released. TDCJ must utilize available resources to accomplish these objectives, and may work with faith-based, nonprofit, and civil rights organizations, among others, to compile and provide this type of information to individuals, which should be available in TDCJ unit libraries and any other TDCJ areas that may increase individuals’ knowledge of this information.

Additionally, TDCJ must establish and provide programs to educate employees and incarcerated individuals about hepatitis, including issues related to hepatitis that are relevant to incarcerated individuals both while confined and on release.

Jail Standards

With a staff of just 16 people and an annual budget of less than $1 million, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards guards Texas counties from damaging lawsuits, specifically by setting constitutional jail standards for counties to follow, conducting facility inspections, enforcing compliance with rules and procedures, and offering vital technical assistance and training for counties. These functions, in turn, help keep jail staff and inmates safe.

The Commission received approximately $588,000 per fiscal year to perform jail inspections and enforce standards; collect data regarding inmate conditions, backlogs, and costs; and assist or receive assistance with operation planning and analysis. Furthermore, the agency received approximately $322,000 per fiscal year for indirect administration to provide finance, human resource, and technology assistance to staff, many of whom work across strategy areas. The commission also received one exceptional item of $10,000 per year for travel expenses, which will allow for additional onsite technical assistance and training.

Click here to download a PDF copy of this summary, as well as summaries of all successful smart-on-crime bills passed in 2013.