COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE BUDGET HEARING
STATE CAPITOL HARRISBURG, PA
MAIN CAPITOL BUILDING 14 0 MAJORITY CAUCUS ROOM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2 019 2:05 P.M.
PRESENTATION ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE: PA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, PA BOARD OF PROBATION AND PAROLE, PA COMMISSION ON CRIME AND DELINQUENCY, AND PA JUVENILE COURT JUDGES' COMMISSION
BEFORE: HONORABLE STANLEY E. SAYLOR, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE ROSEMARY M. BROWN HONORABLE SHERYL M. DELOZIER HONORABLE GEORGE DUNBAR HONORABLE JONATHAN FRITZ HONORABLE MATT GABLER HONORABLE KEITH J. GREINER HONORABLE SETH M. GROVE HONORABLE MARCIA M. HAHN HONORABLE DOYLE HEFFLEY HONORABLE R. LEE JAMES HONORABLE FRED KELLER HONORABLE JOHN A. LAWRENCE HONORABLE JASON ORTITAY
Debra B. Miller [email protected] 2
BEFORE (continued): HONORABLE CLINT OWLETT HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER B. QUINN HONORABLE JAMES B. STRUZZI II HONORABLE JESSE TOPPER HONORABLE RYAN WARNER HONORABLE MARTINA A. WHITE HONORABLE MATTHEW D. BRADFORD, DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN HONORABLE DONNA BULLOCK HONORABLE MORGAN CEPHAS HONORABLE CAROLYN T. COMITTA HONORABLE AUSTIN A. DAVIS HONORABLE MARIA P. DONATUCCI HONORABLE ELIZABETH FIEDLER HONORABLE MARTY FLYNN HONORABLE ED GAINEY HONORABLE PATTY KIM HONORABLE STEPHEN KINSEY HONORABLE LEANNE KRUEGER HONORABLE STEPHEN McCARTER HONORABLE BENJAMIN V. SANCHEZ HONORABLE PETER SCHWEYER
ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS HONORABLE MATTHEW DOWLING HONORABLE CRIS DUSH HONORABLE DAN FRANKEL HONORABLE JOSEPH C.HOHENSTEIN HONORABLE BARRY J. JOZWIAK HONORABLE ROB W. KAUFFMAN HONORABLE JEFFREY P. PYLE HONORABLE FRANCIS X. RYAN HONORABLE CHRIS SAINATO HONORABLE BRIAN SIMS HONORABLE CRAIG T. STAATS HONORABLE TODD STEPHENS HONORABLE DAVID ZIMMERMAN
ALSO PRESENT: HONORABLE MADELEINE DEAN, CONGRESSWOMAN, 4th CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 3
COMMITTEE STAFF PRESENT: DAVID DONLEY MAJORITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RITCHIE LaFAVER MAJORITY DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
MIRIAM FOX DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TARA TREES DEMOCRATIC CHIEF COUNSEL 4
I N D E X
TESTIFIERS
~ k ~ k ~ k
NAME PAGE
JOHN E. WETZEL SECRETARY, PA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS...... 6
CHRISTOPHER H. OPPMAN DEPUTY SECRETARY OF ADMINISTRATION, PA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS...... 10
THEODORE W. JOHNSON CHAIRMAN, PA BOARD OF PROBATION AND PAROLE...... 30
DERIN MYERS ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PA COMMISSION ON CRIME AND DELINQUENCY...... 34
JUDGE KIM BERKELEY CLARK CHAIRMAN, PA JUVENILE COURT JUDGES' COMMISSION...... 67, 73
RICHARD D. STEELE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PA JUVENILE COURT JUDGES' COMMISSION...... 72
SUBMITTED WRITTEN TESTIMONY
* * *
See submitted written testimony and handouts online under "Show:" at:
https://www.legis.State.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/TR/Public/t r finder public action.cfm?tr doc typ=T&billBody=&billTyp=& billNbr=&hearing month=&hearing day=&hearing year=&NewCommi ttee=Appropriations&subcommittee=&subj ect=&bill=&new title= &new salutation=&new first name=&new middle name=&new last name=&new suffix=&hearing loc= 5
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 * * *
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Before we start the
4 hearing, I wanted to announce some updates on our schedule.
5 We have rescheduled the Secretary of DEP to come
6 back to us to answer a couple of questions concerning a
7 letter I had sent him on March 5th at 10 a.m. He'll be here
8 for about a half hour.
9 We also rescheduled, due to the cancellation of
10 snow, the PSERS and SERS schedule. That will also be on
11 March 5th at 1 o'clock.
12 The other update is the rescheduling of the
13 Department of Aging. It has been moved to March 6th at
14 3 o'clock here in this conference room.
15 So with that, I will ask the ladies and gentlemen
16 if they would please rise to be sworn in, and raise your
17 right hand:
18 Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are
19 about to give is true to the best of your knowledge,
20 information, and belief? If so, say "I do."
21
22 (Testifiers responded "I do.")
23
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: With that, we will
25 move to our first questioner, and that is Representative 6
1 Dunbar.
2 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
3 And good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for your
4 patience in us all getting here.
5 Secretary Wetzel, most of these will be directed
6 to you. Seeing that you have the one line item that is a
7 $2 billion line item in a $39 billion budget, so we're
8 going to focus on the SCI line item.
9 So when you're looking -- we have had discussions
10 about measurements and different things like that. What do
11 you look at? What is the one measurement tool that you're
12 always looking at that you monitor closest?
13 SECRETARY WETZEL: I don't know that there's one.
14 I mean, population, obviously, is a driver from a budgetary
15 standpoint, but there's other interim indicators: monthly
16 violence; random positive drug tests; incidents;
17 grievances, both inmate grievances and staff grievances.
18 So it's a variety.
19 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Mm-hmm.
20 SECRETARY WETZEL: Because in our world, a
21 lawsuit can trigger, you know, significant expenditures.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: In your letter that you
23 had written to the Performance-Based Budgeting Board where
24 you had talked about increases in cost, and you said the
25 largest, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you had 7
1 said the largest driver costs -- 90 percent of the
2 increased costs were caused by, the increases were driven
3 by labor costs. Is that correct?
4 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yes. That's the vast majority
5 of our budget.
6 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Okay. So do you spend a
7 lot of time looking at overall labor costs? Cost per
8 inmate? What is the measurement that you look at in that
9 arena?
10 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah; both. So we look at —
11 I mean, cost per inmate is just our overall budget divided
12 by the number of inmates, right?
13 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Right. That's something
14 simple.
15 SECRETARY WETZEL: So the less inmates, unless
16 you lay a bunch of people off, that cost goes up.
17 So specifically we look at expenditures.
18 Personnel expenditures by facility and overall I think is
19 the primary way we look at that.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Okay. And I'm asking
21 also to try and help us collectively as we move forward in
22 the performance-based arena.
23 Do you ever take that cost per inmate, and I have
24 seen it in the past where we have broken it down of how
25 much is straight time, how much is overtime, how much is 8
1 benefits, how much is other costs. Do you ever look at
2 that as well to identify controllable costs?
3 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. We have a breakdown by
4 percentage. I don't know that we've done that with the
5 cost per inmate. But overall, overall budget percentages,
6 we certainly look at overtime hours versus straight time,
7 and then that's subdivided into mandatory overtime
8 percentage.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because I
10 noticed when we had our hearing, our performance hearing,
11 we never really talked about cost per inmate, which I
12 thought was something that was -- there was just a chart
13 that had like 2006 costs, 2011, '16--
14 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
15 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: ---but never a yearly
16 thing.
17 And in past discussions I have had with you, one
18 of the biggest drivers that we talked about that you have
19 control over is those overtime costs.
20 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yep.
21 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: And you had told us
22 before that the increases that we had seen in the past and
23 then on the SCI line item, a lot of it was caused by
24 overtime, which you had hoped to control, first through
25 some of the closures and things like that you thought was 9
1 going to save us money, and our overtime had decreased.
2 SECRETARY WETZEL: It had, up until---
3 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: It had, until this year.
4 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
5 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: And so what was the -
6 and I think we were at $100 million was our high-water mark
7 in ' 14-15 or ' 15-16.
8 SECRETARY WETZEL: It was 106.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Okay.
10 SECRETARY WETZEL: Either 103 or 106 million was
11 our high-water mark.
12 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Okay. And now this year,
13 we're projecting 113. Is that correct?
14 SECRETARY WETZEL: No; 108 is what we're
15 proj ecting.
16 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Huh? I'm sorry?
17 SECRETARY WETZEL: 108 is what we're projecting.
18 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: 108?
19 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yep.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: I thought you said 180
21 for a second.
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: Oh; no.
23 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: All right; 108. And what
24 are we contributing that to, because we have closed the
25 prisons. We have reduced our complement. You know, we 10
1 have done all the different factors we have talked about.
2 What's driving it back up again?
3 SECRETARY WETZEL: Well, this year, two events.
4 The move from SCI Phoenix was about 11 million -
5 10.4 million -- moving inmates from Graterford to Phoenix;
6 and then about 4.6 million, the lockdown and subsequent
7 increase in staffing in the visit rooms from the drug
8 situation. So those two alone are 15 million.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Okay.
10 And do you know what you're budgeting for '19-20
11 for overtime? Do you have an idea?
12 SECRETARY WETZEL: 90.
13 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: 90? Okay.
14 And our overall increase on the SCI line item
15 from ' 17-18 to ' 18-19, it went from 1.93 billion to
16 2.01 billion, and then there was a supplemental of
17 40 million on top of that. Is that correct? So that
18 increase of, oh, over $100 million was more than just
19 overtime costs. What was the other factors that--
20 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: In regards to the
21 supplemental -- is that what you're asking for as part of
22 that increase?
23 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Well, we increased it
24 70 million before the supplemental, and then we increased
25 it 40 million with the supplemental more. So the total 11
1 increase from '17-18 to '18-19 was 100-and-some million.
2 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Well--
3 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: 121 million, to be exact.
4 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Well, some of the
5 things I could comment on, in regards to the supplemental,
6 some of that was, there was some expenses from the HR/IT
7 move from OA. We had some billings there that they had to
8 provide additional funding. That was about 7.7.
9 As the Secretary mentioned, in regards to the
10 drugs, the variety of activities we did to stop drugs
11 coming in, that was another 13.5 million.
12 The Phoenix move, roughly they funded us for
13 about 12.8 million of that, and that would equal about the
14 40 million from that supplemental. And then another
15 10 million of that supplemental was moved towards the
16 medical fund for an increase in hepatitis C treatment. So
17 I have that portion.
18 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Well---
19 SECRETARY WETZEL: If I could just quickly follow
20 up.
21 We also have contractual personnel raises.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Which I understand is
23 about, I think you testified like 4 or 5 percent is what
24 you thought it was going to be.
25 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Yeah. 12
1 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Going into the year.
2 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yep.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Is that where it ended up
4 being, do you believe?
5 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Yes. The bulk of your
6 increases are going to be personnel. Roughly, that's
7 80 percent of the total expenditures. So you're going to
8 have your wage increases, your benefits, and the number one
9 increase is going to be your pension. That's the one that
10 increases the most.
11 So most of those increases are taken care of as
12 cost-to-carry personnel expenses outside of the ones---
13 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Before the Chairman yells
14 at me, I'm going to stop. And I will yield no time back
15 because I have no time left, so.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
17 Bullock.
18 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you, Chairman.
19 Good afternoon, Secretary. How are you?
20 SECRETARY WETZEL: Good. How are you?
21 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Great.
22 So I have two sets of questions. My first
23 question surrounds your diversity and workforce, and it's a
24 question I have asked you in the past.
25 If you can quickly give me a summary of where you 13
1 are this year and any changes in comparison to last year
2 and what efforts you have made to diversify your workforce,
3 understanding some of the challenges you have with the
4 locations of your facilities.
5 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yep. So we're at 13 percent
6 non-White; 27 percent women. The women number has
7 increased slightly. The non-White has decreased slightly.
8 We have a fairly significant increase in Hispanic officers.
9 We work with the HBCUs, both Lincoln and Cheyney,
10 in trying to attract, and we really hit the colleges a lot
11 in trying to attract. But, I mean, as I said, our biggest
12 challenge, if you looked at where our prisons are, you
13 could probably predict where we struggle with diversity.
14 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Mm-hmm.
15 I appreciate your efforts, and seeing that we
16 have some increases in the women and the Latino
17 populations, which I think is also important as you have a
18 growing Spanish-speaking population here in the
19 Commonwealth, I encourage you to continue those efforts,
20 looking at our universities and particularly our HBCUs in
21 the Commonwealth to recruit families and employees to those
22 areas that are harder to employ.
23 My second set of questions is around the work
24 that is probably not counted for in your prisons, which is
25 the work that is done by our inmates themselves. A 14
1 significant amount of the operation in our correctional
2 facilities is dependent on the work and the labor of those
3 inmates that are there. They are significant contributors
4 to making sure the system works, the prison works, and
5 provide a number of services.
6 In addition to that, the Pennsylvania
7 Correctional Industries generates $80 million per year in
8 sales of products and services that come out of our State
9 prisons. Unfortunately, our inmates are performing these
10 tasks, doing these jobs while they're incarcerated, but
11 find difficulty finding those same jobs when they are
12 released. So it's disturbing to me that they can do this
13 work while they're incarcerated, but for some reason we
14 keep them blocked out of those jobs and locked out of those
15 jobs when they come home.
16 Have you been able to find success in any
17 particular industry or any work, and what work are you
18 doing to encourage the broader community to be more
19 receptive to those inmates who have gained skills and
20 talent while they were incarcerated and not being able to
21 use those skills when they return?
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
23 So I think we have seen a big increase in folks
24 coming out of prison and getting employed, and some of our
25 programs really translate well. 15
1 Our culinary arts program in particular is
2 something that translates into real jobs in the community,
3 as does our fiber optics program. We have an optical
4 technician program at Cambridge Springs for females. It
5 has a hundred percent job placement of folks coming out.
6 To whatever extent possible, if an individual is
7 doing work inside one of our prisons, if it's something
8 that we can get a certification, we try to build vocational
9 programs around it.
10 But I think probably, I mean, unemployment is
11 low, so we have more employers engaging directly with the
12 Department for different areas, like flagging, for
13 instance. We have been training flaggers, and apparently
14 that's a high-demand job. The training is relatively
15 inexpensive.
16 And with the Governor's new initiative around
17 workforce and workforce development, we are plugged right
18 in there with our partners from Labor and Industry and some
19 of our other agencies. So I'm very optimistic that we will
20 continue to increase.
21 As a matter of fact, this year we had an increase
22 of I believe 8 percent in the employment of people on
23 parole, from I think 57 percent to 65.
24 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: That's awesome. Thank
25 you for your work in that area. 16
1 I think it's important that we understand that
2 employment is a big factor if you want to reduce
3 recidivism, particularly employment and jobs that are above
4 the minimum wage and jobs that are family-sustaining jobs.
5 And so thank you for that work.
6 SECRETARY WETZEL: You're welcome.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Fritz.
8 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
9 And much appreciation to you, Secretary Wetzel,
10 and your esteemed colleagues for being with us today.
11 2017 saw the closure of one of our SCI
12 facilities, and the initial rollout of the initial plan was
13 to have two considered for closure, and there was a short
14 list of facilities. And if you're one of those
15 Representatives that represented one of the facilities on
16 that list, let me tell you, it was a real ulcer-inducing
17 experience.
18 Now, I'm happy to say that our facility survived
19 that closure consideration, but that anxiety remains that
20 perhaps we're still going to be considered. So with that
21 background, that sentiment, can you kindly share with us,
22 are there any further closures being considered?
23 SECRETARY WETZEL: The Department didn't include
24 prison closure in this year's budget. None of the budget
25 assumptions included that. 17
1 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Okay. I thought I saw
2 that.
3 And I guess I'm going to ask us to look into the
4 crystal ball a little bit. Can you perhaps provide some
5 insight on a 5-year or 10-year horizon whether any would be
6 considered for closure?
7 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. I mean, I think it's a
8 discussion we have every year when we look at budget. But
9 I can't see a year in the foreseeable future as long as
10 population is going down that it' s not part of the budget
11 discussion every year.
12 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Okay.
13 So staying on theme, earlier this year there were
14 news reports on the historic decrease in PA's inmate
15 population and the expectation that that phenomenon and
16 that population decrease would continue to drop. With that
17 in mind, is the Department looking at possibly hosting more
18 out-of-State inmates in PA's excess SCI space?
19 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yes. We're marketing our beds
20 to any State who is looking and willing to pay.
21 We currently have, I believe, about 300 inmates
22 from Delaware. We're anticipating about $13 million in
23 income there.
24 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Okay. That certainly
25 makes business sense. Could that possibly generate 18
1 revenue?
2 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. That's 13 million in
3 revenue.
4 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Okay. Thank you. No
5 further questions.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Kinsey.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
8 Again, good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone.
9 Secretary Wetzel, I want to focus, direct my
10 question to you. I want to talk about the aging
11 population.
12 It's my understanding that 22 percent of the
13 inmates are over the age of 50, and it appears that that
14 number has been consistently increasing over the past few
15 years. Can you share with us why an individual between
16 age 50 and older, 50, 55, is considered elderly within the
17 correctional system?
18 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. As someone who's
19 approaching 50, I didn't pick that number, for the record.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Okay. All right. All
21 right. Because, I mean--
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: The Feds define elderly in
23 prisons at either 50 or 55 because of the harsh conditions,
24 and generally people age faster in prison, so that's the
25 line they drew. 19
1 And as far as the increase, in 1995, it was about
2 7 percent of our population. Today, as you said, it's
3 22 percent of your population. Eighty-two percent of them
4 would be on medication, so it is a more expensive group.
5 But, you know, in a "life means life" State, and
6 we have 5,000 people serving life, that means that they're
7 going to die in prison.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Wow.
9 SECRETARY WETZEL: So our population will age.
10 It's not just Pennsylvania, though. Also, when
11 you look at our commitments, we have more commitments who
12 are older. There's actually like a bimodal distribution,
13 so we have a lot of 18 to 25s. And then the second group,
14 I believe it's 45 -- 40 to 50. That has been an increase
15 also. I don't know if that's necessarily a byproduct of
16 the opioid epidemic, but we're seeing older people come in,
17 and obviously our population is aging these in place.
18 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: All right. I appreciate
19 you sharing that. So let me go back, and I think you just
20 touched on this.
21 I was going to ask, what effect does the aging
22 population have on the costs for the Department, but you
23 just mentioned, did you just say 82 percent?
24 SECRETARY WETZEL: Eighty-two percent on
25 medication versus overall -- 40? 20
1 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: About 40 percent,
2 right.
3 SECRETARY WETZEL: About 40 percent overall;
4 82 percent of that population.
5 We also have a 150-bed nursing home and another
6 150 personal-care beds. We have hospice programs at all
7 our prisons. So there's a pretty big implication of that,
8 yes.
9 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: So in essence, based on
10 what I'm interpreting is, the cost for someone 50, 55, and
11 older is significantly more, and I'm asking this question
12 based on medical concerns and so forth on. Would it be
13 safe to assume that the cost of housing an elderly, you
14 know, 50-plus, is much more than the cost of someone
15 younger?
16 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. In general, yes.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: All right.
18 SECRETARY WETZEL: But we have a really healthy
19 80-year-old who doesn't need any medics or anything, so
20 it's possible. But in general, you're looking at about
21 time and a half, one and a half.
22 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: I appreciate that
23 information, because some of my colleagues and I are
24 introducing legislation to deal with the aging-out
25 population for inmates who are 55 and older, and it appears 21
1 that there has been some discussion in regards to whether
2 or not the age 55 versus someone who is 60 and 65 would be
3 appropriate.
4 But based on what I'm hearing you say is that,
5 just based on the cost of somebody 50-plus, because of the
6 harsher conditions and so forth on, it may work to our
7 benefit, if we are looking to save the Commonwealth some
8 dollars, that maybe some of my colleagues can look at
9 supporting that legislation, Mr. Chairman.
10 Thank you very much.
11 I'm sorry; did you have a comment, sir?
12 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: What I was going to
13 add, too, is, you know, the increased utilization of
14 health-care services, which we assume as they get older,
15 but also for us, it's more outpatient, outpatient services,
16 and then hospitalization, which then puts them in the
17 community and increases our supervision by our correctional
18 officers to have to do out in the field. So it increases
19 that burden when you start to add additional hospital posts
20 out in the community.
21 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Right.
22 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: So it's not just the
23 medical costs; there's the correctional costs, too, back to
24 our SCI.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Is it possible to get 22
1 data that shows not just the inmates who are 50 but
2 categorized from 50 to 55, 55 to 60, and so forth on?
3 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. Five- or ten-year
4 increments?
5 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: I would like 5-year
6 increments, if possible.
7 SECRETARY WETZEL: You got it.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Great. Thank you very
9 much.
10 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Kinsey,
12 I was just going to ask that question, because I'm curious
13 to how many. Do you know what your oldest inmate is?
14 SECRETARY WETZEL: I don't.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Yeah. I'm curious as
16 to how many you have that are 7 5 and above.
17 SECRETARY WETZEL: We have more than you would
18 think.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: If you could send the
20 Committee the list of a breakdown, as Representative Kinsey
21 has requested---
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yep.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: -- and we'll make sure
24 we share it with everybody. But it is an interest of
25 everybody. 23
1 Representative Lawrence is next.
2 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Thank you,
3 Mr. Chairman.
4 And I appreciate you being here today before the
5 Committee. Thank you.
6 According to a published report in the Wilmington
7 News Journal, last October, the State of Delaware signed a
8 2-year contract to house 330 inmates in Pennsylvania
9 prisons at an annual approximate cost of $42,242 per
10 inmate. Last year, this Committee discussed that the
11 Department was charging the State of Vermont a much lower
12 rate for the same service, approximately $26,280 annually
13 per inmate. What accounts for the $18,000 difference in
14 the rates charged per inmate to these States? And, I
15 guess, was Vermont underpaying?
16 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yep; a different level of
17 service. With Vermont, we just housed them, no programs,
18 no anything. So that was just the cost of housing and
19 feeding and minor medical expenses.
20 This contract is, I'll call it full service, so
21 access to all our programs, education, vocational, and any
22 treatment programs that they would be assessed eligible
23 for.
24 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: So with regard to the
25 Vermont prisoners, I have a letter here from the State of 24
1 Vermont Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee to
2 the Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections
3 dated February 21, 2018, regarding the Vermont prisoners
4 housed formerly at SCI Camp Hill. The letter states in
5 part, "We have come to the conclusion that Vermont inmates
6 should be moved from Camp Hill to either another
7 correctional facility within the Pennsylvania system or a
8 facility in another State."
9 Published news reports in the Burlington Free
10 Press indicate that Vermont had a series of issues with
11 Camp Hill, and Vermont eventually exited their 3-year
12 contract with Pennsylvania early, sending the prisoners in
13 question to a Mississippi prison.
14 I would like to get your response to the
15 situation to kind of hear your side of that story.
16 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. I'm sure they're
17 getting the same complaints about Mississippi now. I mean,
18 anytime you move inmates out of State, you're going to get
19 complaints.
20 I think what really doubled them is the fact that
21 we didn't provide programming. So having that many
22 inmates, and I don't remember how many we had from Vermont
23 at the time, but having that many inmates sit around idle,
24 that's a bad strategy.
25 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Let me ask you this: 25
1 You had mentioned earlier that the contract with Delaware
2 was, I think, $13 million. Where does the revenue go from
3 the contracts? Does it go -- I'm assuming it stays within
4 the Department, but how does the Department utilize those
5 funds?
6 SECRETARY WETZEL: So it ends up being -- so our
7 budget request is reduced by 13 million, which is what
8 we're projecting to bring in in income this year.
9 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: And you said you're
10 marketing to other States. How many available beds would
11 you have for other States that are looking to move
12 prisoners---
13 SECRETARY WETZEL: Um--
14 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: ---on a permanent or
15 temporary basis to the Commonwealth?
16 SECRETARY WETZEL: Certainly at least a couple
17 hundred, depending on what the nature of it would be. If
18 they could take up a specific portion of a facility, we may
19 be able to go bigger than that, if it was a long-term
20 contract.
21 REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE: Very good. Thank you.
22 I appreciate that.
23 And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 SECRETARY WETZEL: You're welcome.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative 26
1 Fiedler.
2 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Hi. Thank you for being
3 here.
4 So I have heard from a number of my constituents
5 who have asked a lot of questions about the new mailroom
6 policy, and their concerns have been both related to the
7 taxpayers and then also the cost for incarcerated folks in
8 terms of emotions and wanting to receive physical mail from
9 their families, which I understand.
10 I know you're taking preventive measures, so the
11 body scanners, K-9 units, a few other things, to prevent
12 drugs from actually coming in to the facilities, in
13 addition to the mail room policies. Do you anticipate a
14 point in time when we would go back to the old system? So
15 do you anticipate a point in time when the preventive
16 measures we're taking would be sufficient such that
17 incarcerated people would once again receive the physical
18 mail that their loved ones have sent them from the outside?
19 SECRETARY WETZEL: I do not.
20 And just real quick.
21 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Sure.
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: I know you're on the clock.
23 Between July and August, we sent 45 inmates out
24 who overdosed. We also sent 48 officers out in August who
25 were exposed. 27
1 Now, the problem is that the version of K2 that
2 is coming into prisons right now is a clear, odorless
3 liquid that was either sprayed on pages or actually
4 injected into printer ink. So it's next to impossible to
5 stop it from coming in.
6 As a matter of fact, there was just a big drug
7 ring busted in Pittsburgh 2 weeks ago that was specifically
8 sending K2 into Federal prisons. So from that aspect, no,
9 I do not see that. We're going to take some steps to
10 enhance the pictures, the picture quality. We're close to
11 an announcement on that and some other things. But as far
12 as paper coming in, no.
13 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: And since you brought it
14 up, I would like to ask you, because I have heard from some
15 folks who are, you know, medical experts at Rutgers and the
16 University of Pennsylvania who have said, you know, they
17 have looked at this situation and they have asked whether
18 it was -- well, honestly, they have questioned whether that
19 was indeed what had happened, whether it was actual, you
20 know, drugs that caused a physical reaction in the person's
21 body or if it was something else.
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: A reaction.
23 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Right. Exactly. So
24 would you like to offer any thoughts on that assumption?
25 SECRETARY WETZEL: Sure. 28
1 I actually have a study from the Centers for
2 Disease Control that looks specifically at liquid K2 with
3 Federal Marshals raiding a lab, and they showed exposure in
4 the same way that we described, and I can share that study
5 with the Committee.
6 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: That would be great.
7 You said that's from the CDC?
8 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah; I think they're off
9 base.
10 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Yeah. Please do.
11 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yep.
12 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: And then, because I do
13 have another minute, could you talk a little bit about, I
14 know we're seeing an increase in the population of
15 incarcerated women. While it's still percentagewise small,
16 it's increasing.
17 Could you talk about some of the services you're
18 providing to women who are incarcerated and maybe the
19 challenges of serving them since so much of the population
20 is male.
21 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. It's actually the
22 fastest growing aspect of our population. It has grown
23 eight times since 1980. And still, we're projected to go
24 up in that.
25 Our female population is more likely to be on our 29
1 mental health roster, I think nearly 70 percent, which is a
2 national number. There's some conjecture that comes from
3 trauma and exposure to especially sexual trauma.
4 So right when you get to SCI Muncy -- and I would
5 really encourage you to go visit with our lead shop. Right
6 at intake at SCI Muncy where everybody goes, we have trauma
7 groups. So that really is very different than our males.
8 Obviously, parenting services and those kinds of things.
9 I talked about the optical technician program at
10 Cambridge Springs. That's females only. So we have a fair
11 amount of female-specific programming in addition to the
12 other programming offered. But a lot more around trauma.
13 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Thank you.
14 SECRETARY WETZEL: You're welcome.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Topper.
16 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Good afternoon.
17 I have two questions, but I'm going to give
18 Secretary Wetzel a break for the first one---
19 SECRETARY WETZEL: All right. Thank you.
20 REPRESENTATIVE WETZEL: ---because he's, you
21 know.
22 So, Mr. Johnson, if I could ask a probation and
23 parole question. We'll get you off and running here.
24 My question is in regards to the Supreme Court
25 decision with juvenile, and correct me if I'm wrong, 30
1 juvenile, that there will no longer be life sentences
2 imposed for juvenile offenders.
3 CHAIRMAN JOHNSON: That's correct.
4 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: But Pennsylvania had one
5 of the if not the highest amount of those offenders.
6 CHAIRMAN JOHNSON: They had the highest. Out of
7 2500, 523 were from Pennsylvania.
8 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Has there been or are
9 we going to see a reflection in any kind of costs for,
10 whether it be the Office of the Victim Advocate or for
11 your department in terms of, are there a lot of
12 notifications?
13 I mean, we're really getting into an area, not
14 just with the victims but also with those who have been
15 convicted, their families. I would imagine this has kind
16 of been somewhat of a workload for everyone to try and go
17 back and sift through. Is that accurate, and what has been
18 the fiscal impact or any other impact that you have seen
19 from that decision?
20 CHAIRMAN JOHNSON: I don't see any fiscal impact.
21 And as a matter of fact, because of the MOU, we have been
22 able to spend more time in our decisionmaking process. As
23 the juveniles are resentenced by their respective courts,
24 then they are brought to us and they are worked into our
25 daily workload. 31
1 I am happy to say that it is probably one of the
2 more successful populations that we have. We have
3 interviewed 258 and released 173 of those juveniles. And
4 to date, only three of those juveniles have been re-charged
5 with any crime, and in all three of those juveniles, the
6 charges were dropped.
7 So we have a zero-percent recidivism rate, and
8 that I have to give credit to the Probation and Parole
9 office and DOC for preparing that. And there's group
10 sessions. There's a lot of services that are provided to
11 those juveniles when they are released.
12 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: What about in terms of
13 the notification, and maybe this is, I don't know if this
14 would be something that you would know, like the
15 notification of victims. Obviously if you have to go back
16 and kind of rework some of these cases, has that been an
17 issue at all?
18 CHAIRMAN JOHNSON: No. We work very well with
19 victims on any notifications. They go out, and if there is
20 a victim, then we do take that into consideration. Those
21 victims are interviewed and their opinion is considered in
22 our decisionmaking.
23 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: But you believe it has
24 been successful thus far---
25 CHAIRMAN JOHNSON: Very. 32
1 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: -- and the stats prove
2 that. Okay.
3 Now back to the Department of Corrections for
4 just a moment.
5 You touched on it after Representative Dunbar's
6 question, and it kind of piqued my interest. I think I
7 followed the $40 million supplemental request in terms of
8 some of the things that were needed, but then kind of at
9 the end we just touched a little bit on the $10 million
10 supplemental appropriation for the medical care line.
11 Could you talk about that? Were we not testing for
12 hepatitis before, or what is the genesis behind that?
13 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: No. We have tested
14 previously. All inmates are offered testing when they come
15 in to our institutions. And there have been, there have
16 been treatments in the past that have been contraindicative
17 for a variety of things. If you had depression, either
18 there was sometimes you couldn't take some of the
19 medications. New medications have come on that are very,
20 very effective with little side effects.
21 When these first came out, the price was quite
22 high. I'd say about $85,000 per individual just for
23 medications alone. We have about 5,000 inmates that have
24 hepatitis C currently in the Department, and we have been
25 treating them on a priority basis. 33
1 And hepatitis C, you can have -- this disease
2 takes a long time to progress. People can have this
3 disease for years with little to no symptoms, and we have
4 to make sure that we treat people prior to their starting
5 to have any type of compensation, cirrhosis of the liver,
6 things of that nature. So to prioritize, we test everyone,
7 and then they're categorized based on lab values to make
8 sure we provide the appropriate treatment.
9 It's not always just a financial issue either.
10 This also becomes a systematic issue of, do you have enough
11 practitioners? Do you have a health system large enough to
12 treat everybody?
13 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Okay. So with the
14 additional 10 million, do you feel good moving forward
15 now?
16 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Yes. What that's going
17 to do is it's going to provide about 27. That's an
18 additional money for hep C treatment that we already had.
19 So that's about 1500 inmates will be treated within the
20 next year at a total price tag of about $27 million.
21 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Okay. All right.
22 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
24 Comitta.
25 REPRESENTATIVE COMITTA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 34
1 Good afternoon. Welcome. Thanks for being here.
2 A question about -- this is for PCCD regarding
3 the competitive School Safety and Security Grants.
4 I know there was an overwhelming number of
5 applications requesting $313 million in the first round of
6 applications. There's a lot of need out there. And it is
7 a competitive grant, of course, and only $40 million is
8 available for the grants in the 2018-19 year.
9 Could you talk a little bit about that response
10 rate and the volume of applications for this first year of
11 the School Safety and Security Grants, how does it reflect
12 the need in this area, and how do you see it moving
13 forward.
14 ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MYERS: Well, as you
15 described, we had a pretty overwhelming response to the
16 announcement of the $60 million that was made available
17 last year. If you consider the three separate components
18 of what was announced, I think we had roughly 365 million
19 in requests for, like I said, the $60 million in
20 availability.
21 So using that as the guide, I think about, you
22 know, what the need is. There is significant need. We're
23 in the process now, actually today is the day when school
24 entities are to complete their revisions of what their
25 application involves. Then we'll start to go through those 35
1 applications and start to narrow in on the application of
2 the 40 million that we have remaining for the school safety
3 and security projects.
4 REPRESENTATIVE COMITTA: Thank you.
5 And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Keller.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
8 and thank you, Mr. Secretary, and your team.
9 Just a couple things.
10 I know, Mr. Secretary, you have been up to Union
11 County and saw some of the things we're doing with our
12 Drug Treatment Court and our Day Reporting Center. And I
13 know that we have the Justice Reinvestment programs, you
14 know, the package. I'm just wondering, you know, we have
15 innovative things in that like Justice Bridge Housing and
16 so forth. How are those things funded?
17 SECRETARY WETZEL: How are--- ?
18 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Like, again, the Justice
19 Reinvestment package, there are certain points in that,
20 and, you know, where are we getting the money for funding
21 those?
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: Actually, the concept with
23 Justice Reinvestment is that from reductions in State
24 prison population, that money is reinvested to the front
25 end of the system. 36
1 And specifically with the JRI 2 bill that was
2 introduced last year, there was 21 million projected to be
3 invested at the county level, county probation and parole,
4 to fund programs like---
5 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. I just wanted to
6 make sure that the savings that our counties are getting,
7 they're getting that money back to make sure that we can
8 continue doing that stuff to save money at the State level,
9 right?
10 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. It targets county
11 probation in particular, which the State funds at about
12 16 million a year, in spite of the fact that they oversee
13 85 percent of the people on probation and parole in this
14 State.
15 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. Thank you for
16 that.
17 I want to follow up, if I could, and just switch
18 gears here a little bit.
19 When Representative Dunbar was and we were
20 talking in some of the testimony there, you mentioned that
21 with the supplemental, I guess, our overtime budget is
22 going to be $108 million this year, this fiscal year that
23 ends on June 30th?
24 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yes.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: And we're budgeting 37
1 90 million for next year.
2 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yes.
3 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Well, what's our plan? I
4 mean, I know we can budget, but what's our plan or what
5 action items do we have to make sure that we can actually
6 achieve that reduction?
7 SECRETARY WETZEL: Well, and I'll let Chris talk
8 about what we're doing as it relates to overtime, but keep
9 in mind, 15 million were two very unique one-offs. We're
10 not, you know, moving 2500 inmates from one prison to
11 another. That was 10 million of it. So if you take those
12 -- and then the drug lockdown. If you take those two very
13 extraordinary events, we're at 93 million.
14 So, Chris, do you want to talk about it?
15 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Yeah.
16 And specifically for the plan, as you can see,
17 from the last 4 years, we brought that down from a
18 high-water mark of 104 million in ' 14-15 down to, last
19 year, down to 94 million. And that's also with the
20 increased wages for those hourly wage employees, that it's
21 also, we're bringing that amount down.
22 But primarily when you're talking about overtime,
23 there is three main areas that we're focusing on. The
24 first, it's vacancies, the staffing level, and the
25 day-to-day management. 38
1 The first with vacancies. What we have done is
2 our HR staff have consolidated all the hiring of the
3 correctional officers at the Central Office level, so all
4 the on boarding, making sure the recruiting, testing,
5 physicals, all of that stuff is completed, and then those
6 people are then provided to the individual SCIs where they
7 have any vacancies in their complement.
8 We also look at any of our long-term leave issues
9 -- workers' comp, heart and lung. If we need to, if it
10 makes sense to backfill some of those positions temporarily
11 with a wage position, if that's going to make fiscal sense,
12 we have done some of that as well.
13 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. If I can just sort
14 of, because I see we were at 104, what you said we were,
15 went down to about 90, 94 or so---
16 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: 94.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: ---back up to 108, and
18 then we're planning on going back down to 90. You know,
19 what can we look at long term to make sure that once we get
20 that under control and back down again that we don't
21 continue to see this yo-yo? I mean, how do we monitor
22 that, and can we be sure that we're not going to see those
23 kinds of swings, because that's a pretty big swing.
24 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Well, as the Secretary
25 mentioned -- it is a big swing, but we know where the bulk 39
1 of that increase came from. That came from the move from
2 Graterford to Phoenix where you had over 2500 inmates moved
3 in about a week's time. You had additional staff brought
4 on board to help staff train. You had maintenance staff
5 brought in to help assemble the facility.
6 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. If I can just sort
7 of, because I don't have much time.
8 But when we did our budget, some of this has been
9 done with a supplemental, though, correct? What did we
10 budget for last year, and we're coming in at 108. What was
11 our budget?
12 SECRETARY WETZEL: Eight-eight million.
13 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Eighty-eight. So when we
14 made the plans and we knew we were going to do this stuff
15 last year, we didn't account for that?
16 SECRETARY WETZEL: Actually, we were supposed to
17 move the year before. That was in the year -- the year
18 before is when the move was supposed to happen, but because
19 of---
20 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: At 104. When we spent
21 104 .
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: The previous year.
23 You asked about, did we plan for the move. The
24 move was supposed to happen in the previous fiscal year,
25 but because of construction delays, it happened in this 40
1 fiscal year.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. But did we ever
3 budget for that in the previous year then?
4 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: The previous year, we
5 had a surplus of around $30 million, which would help
6 account for---
7 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: No. I guess my point is,
8 what was our budget the previous year, and then it didn't
9 happen so we're going to do it the next year.
10 I just don't know, I'm just wondering if we
11 prepared and actually did all the homework on it to make
12 sure we understood the costs of moving, you know, or
13 closing this and moving the inmates. And it just seems to
14 me we should have somewhere had that in our budget and had
15 known that and not have to use a supplemental I guess is my
16 point.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
18 Donatucci.
19 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you,
20 Mr. Chairman, and welcome today and good afternoon.
21 I'm going to follow up on my colleague,
22 Representative Fiedler's line of questioning about the mail
23 policy.
24 I'm getting a lot of complaints from constituents
25 that have loved ones who are incarcerated. They are 41
1 complaining that, you know, parents can't hold a child's
2 picture. I have seen some of the, you know, some of the
3 scans. They weren't that great. I know that the originals
4 are destroyed. They're put in a database. So one of the
5 first questions is, how long do they stay in a database?
6 SECRETARY WETZEL: Forty-five days.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Forty-five days.
8 Okay.
9 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
10 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Secondly, it was a
11 no-bid contract. I understand it was an emergency
12 situation. How did it end up being a Florida company and
13 why not a Pennsylvania company to keep funds in
14 Pennsylvania?
15 SECRETARY WETZEL: They were the only company who
16 could do it as quickly as we needed it.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay.
18 SECRETARY WETZEL: And we explored using staff to
19 do it, but that would have, the staffing costs I think
20 would have exceeded what this contract.
21 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: And what does that
22 cost a month? Do you know?
23 SECRETARY WETZEL: Ah, it's about 3 million--
24 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Or how much was the
25 contract? 42
1 SECRETARY WETZEL: It's about 4 million a year,
2 whatever that divided by 12.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay.
4 All right. Now, here's the big question: Has
5 positive drug testing gone down---
6 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yes.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: -- since it has been
8 -- by how much?
9 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yes. So it has gone down.
10 Our average positive inmate drug test in the month before
11 the changes was 1 percent. That's triple what our historic
12 average is. It's now down, last month it was .7 percent.
13 But also some of the other measures, and all these measures
14 are on our website. We have a dashboard that shows, by
15 month, what the implications were.
16 Another measure that hasn't been discussed around
17 this issue is violence. Violence has gone down since we
18 made these changes. What you know about the drug trade in
19 prisons is it drives violence. Most of our violence is
20 around the drug trade. So our violence was high, again, an
21 all-time high in July and August as far as assaults on
22 staff and inmate-to-inmate assaults. That's down, too.
23 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay.
24 SECRETARY WETZEL: But I would encourage you to
25 go to our website. It has every measure around everything 43
1 around drugs on the website.
2 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay.
3 I know there is a lawsuit, though, with the ACLU
4 because of legal attorney and client privilege. What
5 happens when people want to send things, and I know a lot
6 of people aren't sending them. They're telling me this.
7 They don't want to send financial matters through that
8 because they feel that somebody else is reading it and
9 scanning it. Why are they under the impression that they
10 save it for 7 years in a database?
11 I mean, this is the complaint that I have gotten.
12 I can only tell you what's being told to me.
13 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. And I have done several
14 listening sessions with family members that had concern,
15 and I have another one scheduled next week, and I'm hearing
16 the same thing. We put all the information on the website.
17 I don't know where misinformation gets to.
18 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay.
19 All right. So I'm going to change the
20 questioning now. I want to talk about Pennsylvania nurses,
21 because they have the highest risk of workplace violence.
22 Given that legislation has been introduced this
23 year to provide additional safety protections for
24 corrections officers, are there any steps being taken to
25 improve the safety of nurses in your facilities? 44
1 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. I think everything that
2 we do is for all correctional employees who work inside the
3 facilities. I mean, our nurses are inside the walls, just
4 like everybody else is, and they do have as dangerous a job
5 as anyone else, especially given some of our specialty
6 populations.
7 For instance, we're having an increase, when we
8 talked about aging earlier, an increase in the number of
9 individuals suffering from dementia. That's a very
10 difficult population to work with in the community. Inside
11 the prison, it's equally dangerous.
12 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay.
13 And lastly, with the hepatitis C crisis, has
14 additional staff been hired to handle the treatment, and if
15 not, is existing staff incorporated? Is it okay? Are
16 there enough people to do this?
17 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Well, with some of this
18 treatment, it depends on the medications they're on. It
19 depends on the genotype of the patient.
20 So let's say the more complicated cases, we have
21 a memorandum of understanding with Temple University where
22 they do some of the treatment. So their doctors and their
23 providers, through telemedicine, are able to see all of our
24 patients and prescribe the appropriate treatments.
25 For the ones in house, our current health-care 45
1 contractor has to provide those practitioners to do the lab
2 work as well as the prescribing of the medications. And we
3 do have some -- we have hired an additional nurse to work
4 at our Central Office location really as a coordinator for
5 the treatment and to ensure, from a quality improvement
6 perspective, we're doing everything that we need to do.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. Thank you. I'm
8 out of time.
9 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
11 Delozier.
12 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Thank you,
13 Mr. Chairman.
14 Thank you all for being here and for the work
15 that you do within our correctional institutions, as well
16 as all the parts of the system. We all have to work in it
17 together.
18 Secretary, I asked you this last year. I thought
19 I would follow up on the general population and the work
20 per hour paid to inmates when they are not working. Do we
21 still -- it's still on the website, so I'm assuming we
22 still do it, and it's my understanding, if reading it
23 correctly, up to 9 months can be paid if they can't find or
24 if we can't place them in a job? Is that---
25 SECRETARY WETZEL: Correct. 46
1 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: And what is the purpose
2 of doing that? Because according to what is described,
3 we're basically paying them to have, it's listed as clean
4 hygiene, making their beds, behaving themselves. Why do we
5 do that?
6 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. I don't pay -- because
7 we were the ones who couldn't get them a job.
8 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Right. But they're in
9 prison, so they're not, they're not there to be in a job.
10 So I guess I'm trying to understand what the--
11 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. I mean, I think there's
12 some real expenses that, you know, 17 cents an hour offsets
13 for them.
14 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Mm-hmm.
15 SECRETARY WETZEL: I mean, that's what we're
16 talking about, 17 cents an hour.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: No, I understand it's
18 minimal. It's the idea of it. Do you know the total cost?
19 SECRETARY WETZEL: I don't, but I'll get it to
20 you.
21 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
22 Right now, do you know that the ratio our COs to
23 inmates are?
24 SECRETARY WETZEL: It's about five to one.
25 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Five to one. And will 47
1 that change if we bring in new, other States?
2 SECRETARY WETZEL: It would depend on how many.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. So do we plan
4 on, when we bring in those other States' inmates possibly,
5 which is a good call. It makes money, so I understand why
6 we're looking at it. Will we be bringing on more COs or
7 will we be doing it with the COs that we have?
8 SECRETARY WETZEL: It depends on the circumstance
9 and how many we bring in.
10 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Oh; okay. So--
11 SECRETARY WETZEL: So like right now, a bunch of
12 them are at, like SCI Phoenix, we're already staffed for
13 that--
14 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
15 SECRETARY WETZEL: ---and they're filling empty
16 beds. They're already staffed. So in that case, we didn't
17 have to add any staff.
18 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: So it would just depend
19 on where they're being placed necessarily? Okay.
20 Is five to one typical nationwide or is that high
21 or low, or---
22 SECRETARY WETZEL: We'd be in the top 10 percent
23 as far as, in the good way.
24 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
25 SECRETARY WETZEL: And I think we're lower now 48
1 than we have been in quite some time. I think in my time,
2 we have never been this low, and a lot of it is because
3 having less than a 1-percent vacancy rate has helped that.
4 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
5 And I want to go to a little bit, as you well
6 know, I have Camp Hill in my district, and so correctional
7 officers see everybody at Camp Hill with the ability for
8 everybody being classified. So we brought up nurses a
9 minute ago, and obviously, as you mentioned, everybody
10 that's inside the walls are staff and their safety.
11 So I know that when we had some issues with
12 nursing and being assaulted, you made some positive changes
13 to make sure that that one on one does not happen any
14 longer as well. Can you talk a little bit about it?
15 Because one of the issues that OA's data has is that
16 statewide, not in Corrections, it's reported that workplace
17 injuries have gone up from last fiscal year 225 percent.
18 SECRETARY WETZEL: Mm-hmm.
19 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: So I'm sure the COs
20 have a tough job and I'm sure that workplace incidents
21 happen on the grounds. Can you talk about what steps have
22 been taken since Sergeant Baserman's death out in the SCI
23 and protecting our staff inside the walls?
24 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yep.
25 So I would also say that our numbers are up 49
1 significantly, but when you send 48 people out in one month
2 for the exposures, that all goes on the workman's comp
3 books.
4 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
5 SECRETARY WETZEL: So we're probably a big
6 contributor to that 225 percent increase.
7 A couple things. One, training, staff training.
8 We have made significant steps in expanding, especially
9 defense tactics coupled with verbal de-escalation, and
10 scaled that system-wide and also made that available to all
11 staff, not just security staff.
12 I think from an intelligence and analytics
13 process, we have made significant steps forward in
14 predicting violence.
15 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
16 SECRETARY WETZEL: So you may be aware of, like,
17 New York City uses CompStat -- right? -- to predict
18 incidents. We'll have the first correctional version of
19 that hopefully up and running next month.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
21 SECRETARY WETZEL: We meet now every Tuesday with
22 all the facilities and go over intelligence and share
23 intelligence system-wide. So we're doing a better job of
24 predicting when issues may occur using analytics. We now
25 have an analytics department, analytics department under 50
1 our internal affairs.
2 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. And I appreciate
3 that.
4 And I know that you're very active nationwide
5 with many of the other correctional Secretaries as well as
6 other agencies, so I appreciate bringing in something from
7 other States that has worked well.
8 One of the questions, and it has been brought up
9 about the instances with the substances coming in, and I
10 thank you for taking action and making changes to protect
11 the staff within the institutions. Were any of the
12 inmates' rights compromised at any time by the things that
13 you did?
14 SECRETARY WETZEL: I don't believe so, no.
15 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: I didn't think so.
16 So the changes that are being taken, you have a
17 couple moving ahead that you have in the future with the
18 visiting rooms. Could you expound on that a little bit?
19 SECRETARY WETZEL: I'm not sure---
20 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: I thought you were —
21 aren't there still outstanding some changes in visiting
22 rooms? I was reading on the website that there were some
23 additional things to be done in visiting rooms.
24 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah, just not all the
25 scanners. The scanners actually have to get certified by 51
1 DEP.
2 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
3 SECRETARY WETZEL: So we're at about two-thirds
4 of our facilities. Maybe even more than that.
5 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: The scanners have to be
6 approved by DEP?
7 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
8 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Oh; okay.
9 SECRETARY WETZEL: The body scanners. Yes, they
10 do. Yeah.
11 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. All right. That
12 didn't seem to fit there.
13 Okay. Well, thank you very much. And I just
14 would add, I appreciate all the work that you have done on
15 all the criminal justice reform, and I appreciate working
16 with you on it. Thank you.
17 SECRETARY WETZEL: Likewise.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
19 McCarter.
20 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: Thank you,
21 Mr. Chairman.
22 And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here
23 today and everyone else and joining us.
24 I would like to turn a little bit to the
25 Pennsylvania Correctional Industries program, and I 52
1 understand that last year, we generated somewhere over
2 $80 million in sales out of that program in our State
3 prisons. And can you tell us a little bit of some of the
4 products that were manufactured out of that program?
5 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Yes. There is a
6 variety of products that they produce at Correctional
7 Industries.
8 First, there's the laundry. The laundry division
9 provides all the, does all the linens and clothes for all
10 the inmates across the Commonwealth. They have some
11 contracts with some other State-related or nonprofit
12 entities that they also do launder -- sheets, pillows,
13 blankets, things of that nature out in the community.
14 We also have our, we manufacture clothing for all
15 the inmates and for the staff. We did have a contract as
16 well with the State of New York to do their uniforms as
17 well.
18 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: Can you tell us a
19 little bit of how then, you know, how are these industries
20 preparing the inmates for, once they are released, for
21 employment outside to these---
22 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: Well, I mean, it's a
23 variety of job skills, organizational skills that they're
24 going to learn while they're in there, regardless of which
25 type of correctional industry. Some of them, more 53
1 specifically, like our welding shops where we have license
2 plate manufacturings and metal shops at SCI Fayette. And
3 our newest partnership with PennDOT where we're starting to
4 refurbish snowplows at SCI Forest. In phase 1, we are
5 sandblasting and repainting the wheels, because obviously
6 with all the salt, the corrosion on the facilities.
7 So they are getting some of those specific skills
8 you might think of, like welding, in those areas.
9 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: And for the parolees
10 that have participated in a program, do you see a
11 difference in the employment rate or success once they have
12 moved to the outside?
13 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
14 In general, the RAND Corporation did a study and
15 saw a 20-percent reduction in recidivism for people
16 participating in any education program to include
17 vocational ed. And as I said earlier, our parolee
18 employment is at an all-time high for us.
19 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: And what percentage of
20 inmates participate in these programs while in prison?
21 DEPUTY SECRETARY OPPMAN: For Correctional
22 Industries, they currently employ over 1600 inmates
23 throughout their facilities.
24 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: So that's what
25 percentage roughly then, 1600 of 45,000? That's-- 54
1 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. Math is not my strong
2 point, but I'm thinking it's around 3 percent.
3 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: It's about 3 percent.
4 Okay. That's what I was curious about.
5 SECRETARY WETZEL: But that's not — Correctional
6 Industries isn't the only opportunities for work. I mean,
7 we do, for instance, HVAC is something where you'll do HVAC
8 work while you're there, get a certificate, and that's
9 another real marketable skill.
10 So we're actually trying to better align our work
11 offerings with the type of employment individuals can get.
12 And we're actually partnering with Labor and Industry and
13 doing that by ZIP Code that they're going to get released
14 in, because the jobs available in the southeast are much
15 different than the southwest and certainly much different
16 than north-central PA.
17 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: No; I appreciate that.
18 And I think we all realize that it's one of the hardest
19 things to do, to be able to get our parolee population
20 engaged in meaningful employment once they do leave prison.
21 And so anything you can do in that area, we're most
22 appreciative.
23 Thank you.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
25 Struzzi. 55
1 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Good afternoon.
2 I represent SCI Pine Grove. It is literally a
3 few miles from my house. I can see the glow of the lights
4 in the evening, and it's also one of our top employers in
5 the county. So I truly appreciate what the corrections
6 officers do and the entire staff. Many of them are my
7 friends. Our kids play Little League together, et cetera.
8 But building on what Representative Delozier
9 said, I'm still very concerned with the safety of our
10 corrections officers, and I appreciate the steps that are
11 being taken, particularly with the mail process and the
12 decrease in violent episodes because of that.
13 But there's also the situation where, they are
14 sometimes not safe when they are outside of the walls as
15 well. And I have heard incidents, you know, where
16 corrections officers, because their names are out there,
17 that they are subject to crime outside of the prison walls.
18 Can you talk a little bit about that and what preventative
19 measures might be taken to ensure their safety both on the
20 job and when they're out in the community?
21 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
22 I mean, in the community, your best weapon is
23 situational awareness. I mean, it's something every one of
24 us who work in the field have to, have to be aware of and
25 have to, frankly, struggle with, especially when someone 56
1 would recognize you a lot quicker than you would recognize
2 them.
3 I know we advocated for the bill for correctional
4 officers to be able to carry weapons. I don't remember if
5 that bill -- oh, it did pass? Okay. Yeah. We really
6 advocated for that, for that specific reason. And when
7 that bill first started is when law enforcement, members of
8 law enforcement were being targeted. And so our staff
9 going to and from work in uniform, I felt like that was an
10 important step.
11 But it's a challenge working in this field,
12 especially in a big State system where---
13 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Right.
14 SECRETARY WETZEL: ---like I said, in most county
15 jail systems, you know most of the people and you would
16 recognize them. That's not always the case with our staff.
17 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: And you said the number
18 of incidents have decreased recently. What is -- is there
19 an average number of incidents per month that occur
20 statewide?
21 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
22 In my budget testimony, it has the last year of
23 both major assaults and overall assaults. Major assaults
24 are up this year to 61. We generally average in the low
25 50s. 57
1 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Mm-hmm.
2 SECRETARY WETZEL: And you'll see 3 months that
3 it was really high, as I spoke about, July and August, and
4 then we had an increase in October, and that was largely
5 driven by, frankly, drugs drying up and having less supply.
6 And there was a lot of violence around people who owed
7 drugs to people and now they couldn't deliver it.
8 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: And is this incidents
9 towards corrections officers or the general population?
10 SECRETARY WETZEL: Both, but I'm talking
11 specifically around correctional officer assaults. If you
12 look in my testimony, it will have assaults by month, and
13 those are the three high months.
14 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Okay.
15 SECRETARY WETZEL: The two before the lockdown
16 and the one after.
17 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Okay. I'll look at
18 that.
19 And what constitutes an incident being reported?
20 So what level?
21 SECRETARY WETZEL: So the overall assaults
22 capture everything from throwings to, like if someone
23 throws something on you. The major assaults are defined by
24 assaults that someone is sent out to the hospital.
25 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: And do you feel that 58
1 those are adequately reported?
2 SECRETARY WETZEL: I do.
3 Actually, we asked the Auditor General to audit
4 that very specific question 3 years ago, and while he
5 provided us with some suggestions on how to do it better, I
6 feel like in the most -- I feel as confident as you can
7 feel sitting here with 25 prisons.
8 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Okay. Thank you.
9 My next question then relates to parole. Now,
10 I'm happy to hear that there are programs in place to get
11 parolees back into the workplace and that we have a
12 workforce issue, and I think everything we can do to give
13 people a second chance is very important.
14 But it concerns me that in the budget request, it
15 was mentioned that 66 percent of current inmates have drug
16 issues, correct? And yet we see the number of inmates
17 decreasing while at the same time we just heard a couple of
18 hours ago the State Police say that drug arrests are
19 increasing across the State.
20 So how are we seeing the number of inmates
21 decrease, because in my view, it' s not always a number we
22 want to chase. I think it's important for the general
23 public that, you know, we have the right process in place,
24 that we're not just paroling inmates to lower our numbers,
25 et cetera. 59
1 Can you explain to me why those numbers are
2 decreasing based on what I just said?
3 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. I mean, the biggest
4 decrease has been in new court commitments and parole
5 violation returns, those two areas in particular.
6 So with new court commitments, so if we
7 experience an increase in arrests this year, we won't feel
8 it at the back end of the system until probably 2 years
9 from now, would be my guess.
10 And also my guess would be, without looking at
11 the crime numbers, my guess would be, the folks we're
12 seeing come into the system don't have long criminal
13 histories .
14 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Mm-hmm.
15 SECRETARY WETZEL: But because they're now
16 addicted to opioids, they're getting a bunch of arrests.
17 That profile would generally be unlikely to land in a State
18 prison unless what they did is so egregious, because they
19 wouldn't have a high previous record score.
20 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Mm-hmm.
21 SECRETARY WETZEL: So their sentence would likely
22 be a local sentence, which is one of the rationales behind
23 really trying to push that money to the front end of the
24 system to county probation through JRI 2.
25 But I would be happy to follow up with you and 60
1 kind of break that down a little more for you.
2 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: And thank you.
3 I just encourage, you know, the criminal justice
4 reform, I think it's important that we not just parole
5 people but we make sure they're ready to go back into
6 society before we put them out on the streets.
7 So thank you.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
9 Heffley.
10 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 And I just had a couple of quick questions for
12 the PCCD regarding the Naloxone.
13 The Governor's budget this year calls for
14 1.5 million to expand access to Naloxone to first
15 responders, and I just was curious as to how those dollars
16 would be distributed.
17 And I have heard from some of my local
18 constituents that they had some concerns and they had
19 difficulty in applying and getting Naloxone for their local
20 emergency service personnel. They had applied, only to be
21 told that there was nothing available.
22 If you could just provide a breakdown as to how
23 the dosages are going to be -- how they're being
24 distributed to police departments, EMS, the fire companies,
25 or any other entities. 61
1 ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MYERS: Well, what we
2 did when we rolled this program out 2 years ago was to
3 establish an entity within each county who could coordinate
4 within that county about where the need was and then make
5 those resources available for first responders.
6 You know, there's quite a range from county to
7 county about how many first-responder organizations there
8 are and the complexity about deciding who needs those and
9 who does not need those. So we relied on people at the
10 local level to help make those determinations.
11 You know, in Allegheny County, for example, there
12 are several hundred first-responder organizations. Some of
13 the smaller counties in Philadelphia, that's a much smaller
14 number.
15 So that's how we made those determinations. We
16 asked people to give us some estimates about what they
17 needed within their county or within their region, and then
18 we contracted directly with the manufacturer and then asked
19 them to ship those directly to the first responder, or to
20 the coordinated entity to then pass along to the first
21 responders.
22 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: So, for example, if a
23 police department comes to me and says, you know, they're
24 out of Naloxone. These things expire. I think we had
25 quite a few of them distributed, and they expired. I think 62
1 it's after about a year that they set to expire. And also
2 for the police and first responders, it's important to have
3 them on hand. A lot of times they themselves are exposed
4 to fentanyl or other dangerous drugs that they could
5 possibly need that for.
6 So if a police department or officers came to me
7 and said, look, they're out of them; they don't have them,
8 and they have been use. They have saved hundreds of lives,
9 thousands of lives across the State, so it's a really
10 important program to get these tools out there. But I
11 guess I just want to make sure that our first responders
12 aren't having difficulties receiving them.
13 ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MYERS: Yeah. And if
14 that ended up being the case, you know, we certainly want
15 to hear about that. But overall, we distributed almost
16 80.000 doses.
17 Counties are reporting back to us just about
18 6.000 reversals. So there may be situations where there
19 are folks who are running out or who have expired Naloxone
20 that they're looking to replace, and I think the expiration
21 is a little closer to the 2-year mark.
22 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Okay.
23 ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MYERS: But there are
24 issues like that. And this program does not pretend to be
25 able to offer that to every individual, every person who 63
1 may need it, but it is a significant step in the right
2 direction. It has had pretty good results so far.
3 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Do you track if an
4 individual, like you said, it was 6,000 reversals. Do you
5 know if there was multiple doses of Naloxone prescribed to
6 any of those reversals?
7 ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MYERS: I do believe we
8 have some of that data. I don't have it with me today, but
9 we could, after, get that and, you know, provide it to you.
10 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: All right. Thank you.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Gainey.
12 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Thank you, Chairman.
13 It's good to see you, always. But before I
14 begin, I want to just say congratulations on your work on
15 criminal justice. I think, one, when we talk about those
16 in the nation, without question, you're in front of the
17 curve. And what you have done to reduce the recidivism
18 rate, to reduce population, from me to you, I just want to
19 say thank you.
20 You know, the Governor has been talking about
21 criminal justice reform for a while in his new budget. He
22 also talked about decrim-ing the legalization of marijuana.
23 We also had Eugene DePasquale come in and say, if we
24 legalize marijuana, it will bring 581 million to the
25 coffers of the State of Pennsylvania. 64
1 I was wondering, if we decrim small amounts of
2 marijuana, what is the amount in savings it would bring to
3 SCI?
4 SECRETARY WETZEL: So when you say decriminalize,
5 that's not legalizing it.
6 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Not legalizing; decrim.
7 SECRETARY WETZEL: It's just making it a legal
8 offense.
9 I think it's difficult to do the math. I think
10 where decriminalizing would have a positive is if you made
11 it retroactive and it would reduce the offense gravity
12 score of people who are arrested.
13 We don't generally have a lot of people who come
14 in just for personal use of marijuana, so that doesn't
15 preclude someone who is dealing marijuana or anything like
16 that. So it would be difficult to give you an exact
17 number.
18 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: We were talking about
19 just going through the amount of money it would save SCI
20 and also down towards the courts. So I would just be
21 curious, even on the legalization side, how do you feel
22 about that?
23 SECRETARY WETZEL: I think, like all criminal
24 justice, we should proceed with caution on all of it. We
25 should really look at the implications. 65
1 I mean, so you have Colorado who has the longest
2 history of this, and I think we study and look at what the
3 implications are of it and then make sure that if we choose
4 to go down that road, we look at all other laws that have
5 an impact.
6 For instance, the driving while intoxicated, even
7 in a medical marijuana State, I think users, legal users,
8 are in a bit of a precarious position I think right now.
9 So I think whatever we do, it should be holistic and based
10 on what the research would suggest makes sense.
11 With that being said, if New York and New Jersey
12 go, in essence you're going to have parts of Pennsylvania
13 that it's going to feel like it's legal. So that's part of
14 the math that folks have to do also.
15 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: So, you know I have some
16 constituents and, you know, they always want to ask me
17 questions, so there's two questions I have from a
18 constituent that she would like for me to ask you.
19 I think one you kind of addressed with
20 Representative Donatucci, and one is, why did Secretary
21 Wetzel give 15 million to a Florida company to scan and
22 photocopy mail to prisoners? That's the first one.
23 And then she follows up with, why did the DOC
24 meet with Smart Communications of Florida a month before
25 the emergency lockdown? 66
1 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
2 So for the first one, I answered that already.
3 They were the only company able to do it as quickly as what
4 -- because understand, we shut the mail down. Like, there
5 was no mail coming in because of the amount of drugs coming
6 in through the mail.
7 The second one, this isn't a new phenomenon.
8 Over the past year, we have seen an increase, and again,
9 someone developing an odorless, basically undetectable drug
10 that people can smuggle in through the mail, that's really
11 what necessitated it. So our staff has been looking at
12 this for a year.
13 We had a group together called DISC that was led
14 by one of my executive deputies looking at different ways.
15 So who staff met with over that year? We probably met with
16 every vendor known to man. And we now have drone
17 detection, because people are flying drones over our
18 prisons trying to drop drugs in. So it' s a whole new
19 world, and if we just do business as usual, we're not going
20 to be successful.
21 And I will advocate as much as we can to try to
22 create an environment inside prisons where people can leave
23 better than they came in. That can't happen in prisons
24 inundated with drugs. So that's basic stuff we have to
25 start with. 67
1 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: And I also want to thank
2 you. Me and the Chairman was talking about how progressive
3 it is to have education inside of our jails, so then when
4 people come out, they're actually career or work ready. So
5 I want to thank you for that.
6 And I would be remiss if I didn't say hello to
7 Ted Johnson and the Judge from Allegheny County, Judge
8 Clark. It's great to see both of you. Thank you for being
9 here today, and I look forward to working with you,
10 Mr. Johnson.
11 Secretary Wetzel, as always, I appreciate you,
12 and thank you.
13 SECRETARY WETZEL: Thank you.
14 JUDGE CLARK: Thank you.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: So, Judge, I'll have a
16 question for you here. I can't let you off free today.
17 But it will probably be a softball. We'll see.
18 JUDGE CLARK: Okay.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: One of the things,
20 Commissioner, that is concerning to me has been where
21 exactly -- and you talked about it. One of the biggest
22 things, and you and I have talked about it in the past,
23 where are we at with education?
24 You know, I have been a real supporter of the
25 reform that we are seeing in our corrections system as far 68
1 as early release and things like that. But I am concerned,
2 as you and I have talked about in the past, about the
3 importance of education, these people getting a GED or some
4 kind of an education. Because I believe recidivism is
5 usually based upon somebody not being able to get a job
6 because they can't read or write or do the things they need
7 to get a job. So where are we at with that in our system,
8 because to me, education is very critical.
9 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah.
10 We have a lot of people participating in both
11 vocational ed and GED, high school diploma. As a matter of
12 fact, we did over 400 GEDs last year, and we usually are
13 around that level. We also get folks diplomas from their
14 high school, if possible.
15 We're also one of the States that are part of the
16 Pell experiment. Actually, it was started by the Obama
17 Administration. The Trump Administration just extended it
18 for another year where we're able to provide higher ed
19 funded by Pell Grants for inmates getting out in the next
20 5 years. And nationally, it's kind of one of the next
21 steps they're looking for as far as Federal reform.
22 And actually, we have six universities in
23 Pennsylvania that provide that higher ed, and we're looking
24 to expand that, trying to find some creative ways to fund
25 that to couple with the Pell. 69
1 But IUP, Bloomsburg, Villanova, and Lehigh Carbon
2 Community College, actually, it's four universities
3 participate in that Pell at six different prison sites.
4 And we look to expand that.
5 The vocational stuff, we're really moving forward
6 in that area. As I said, we're partnering, we got a
7 million-dollar Federal grant to look at partnering with
8 groups like community colleges to figure out what the needs
9 are, what the workforce needs are by area where someone is
10 getting out and then working to put vocational programs in
11 place to do that.
12 I'll just touch on one that's really exciting,
13 that we're not quite there yet, but we're looking to train
14 inmates in wastewater treatment. The average person
15 working that is over the age of 55. No judgment on what
16 that means other than folks are going to be retiring soon
17 and there's a huge need. So working with the associations
18 to figure out what's the profile of an individual who could
19 actually get a job given their criminal background, what
20 criminal background is acceptable to go in this program,
21 and then they'll partner with a community college to
22 actually provide that training.
23 So we're all on board as far as education and
24 trying to be creative, and also advocating on the Federal
25 level to take a look, I mean, the Pell experiment is to 70
1 see, does higher ed have a positive impact on recidivism,
2 and we all believe it does.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: The last thing, just
4 as a comment to you, is a real concern about $90 million in
5 overtime. I understand this year with your cost overruns
6 and why that is. But to me as a former private businessman
7 and having worked for a company as well, you know, we had
8 overtime at times, but it just seems to me like $90 million
9 in overtime is not a good thing to be going, whether it's
10 the safety of the guards or whatever. To me, the longer
11 and more overtime, and we talk about the safety of nurses,
12 even in hospitals, that when you work a certain amount of
13 hours in a week's time, you kind of forget things, leave
14 things go.
15 So it's a concern I have for the safety. When
16 you have $90 million, that seems like a lot. There should
17 be a better way of fixing that that we can get those costs
18 down a lot lower.
19 SECRETARY WETZEL: Yeah. In some ways, there
20 are. I mean, there are some things that are unplanned
21 trips that we don't want staff, like, waiting around to see
22 if someone has to go out to the hospital. But we can
23 always do better on controlling.
24 But I would really encourage you to look at the
25 number of hours, so the number of hours has gone down. And 71
1 if we're going to compare over 10 years, let's adjust for
2 inflation and adjust for salary increases. I think the
3 hours tell a bigger story, but we can always do better and
4 get more efficient.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Just like I said,
6 90 million seems like a lot, and I think for taxpayers that
7 sounds like, well, why that high? But if we can continue
8 looking at how we can reduce those. I don't expect that
9 overtime is going to go away, but I think there has got to
10 be a better way of protecting our guards as well as, you
11 know, everybody else in the corrections system by trying to
12 get those numbers down so we have more reasonable hours.
13 SECRETARY WETZEL: Just one follow-up to that.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Sure.
15 SECRETARY WETZEL: Ninety million out of about
16 2 billion in personnel expenditures. So again, just from a
17 percentage standpoint---
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I understand. I don't
19 argue with you. I'm not the expert in it. So I'm just
20 saying, I'm just very concerned.
21 SECRETARY WETZEL: I'm just trying to
22 contextualize the conversation.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Yeah. I do have some
24 concern for the guards and anybody else.
25 You know, I get very upset sometimes when I think 72
1 that, with companies, private industry, where people who
2 are working in their companies are overworked and not able
3 to spend time with families and things like that. To me,
4 it's important that we're making sure that's happening, and
5 I'm assuming you are.
6 SECRETARY WETZEL: I agree with that.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Okay.
8 SECRETARY WETZEL: And mandatory overtime is
9 11 percent of our overall overtime, so.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.
11 Now, Judge, or of course Mr. Steele, the last
12 question I have really has to do with juvenile probation.
13 Representative Gainey and I were talking up here.
14 Again, it comes to education. But, you know, the dollars
15 that we send out to the counties for juvenile probation
16 services, are we monitoring what they are doing to make
17 sure that they are in the best way possible spending those
18 dollars to make sure that our recidivism rate in that area
19 is as low as possible and we're doing the right things with
20 those dollars?
21 JUDGE CLARK: Rick is going to start.
22 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STEELE: Thank you.
23 That's a very good question and one of the things
24 that we have been really working on over the past number of
25 years, is assuring that there are certain conditions around 73
1 allocating those dollars to the counties.
2 So Pennsylvania's juvenile justice system is in
3 the midst of one of the most comprehensive juvenile justice
4 reform efforts nationally. Very well known; very well
5 along.
6 We also understand that counties, depending on
7 their size, their location, what their resources are, their
8 implementation of this plan we have put together can change
9 from county to county. And so on a yearly basis, in order
10 to become eligible for their grants, there's a survey that
11 they must complete about where they are in terms of
12 implementing the Juvenile Justice System Enhancement
13 Strategy, and they have to commit to an implementation plan
14 that is approved by our Commission prior to receiving the
15 money.
16 So there are other conditions of the allocation
17 of that funding as well, but probably to get to your point
18 of how are we measuring change, we do that on a yearly
19 basis, both county specific as well as statewide.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: So---
21 Go ahead, Judge.
22 JUDGE CLARK: I was just going to say, we have
23 very good data that's collected by the Juvenile Court
24 Judges' Commission. Counties are mandated to report their
25 data to the Commission. We have a good system to collect 74
1 that data in a uniform manner so that counties are
2 reporting the same data in the same fashion.
3 Reports are issued annually about the outcome
4 data for juvenile cases in Pennsylvania. It's on the
5 Juvenile Court Judges' Commission website, but it's also
6 published in hard copy, if you want copies of that.
7 And we also have recidivism data where -- when
8 did we first start doing that?
9 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STEELE: Our base was 2007
10 through 2010.
11 JUDGE CLARK: And so we first made a definition
12 of what we wanted recidivism to be, and over the course of
13 those years, we have collected and then published annually
14 the recidivism data in Pennsylvania, which gives us really
15 good marks in terms of recidivism. It certainly could be
16 better, because anything can be better. If it's not
17 100 percent non-recidivism, then it could always be better.
18 That information is also available on the JCJC's website.
19 In addition, there are many training
20 opportunities for juvenile probation departments, juvenile
21 probation officers, and juvenile judges and hearing
22 officers as well through the statewide Conference on
23 Juvenile Justice. And as you know, the master's program
24 for juvenile probation officers, that is sponsored by the
25 Commission through Shippensburg University. 75
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: So the funds that are
2 going out are based upon performance measures. Is that
3 what I'm hearing from you, Mr. Steele, the way you allocate
4 dollars, or is it so much per county?
5 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STEELE: Well, the allocation
6 kind of has been set for quite a number of years. It
7 isn't so much that it raises or lowers, but there are
8 expectations in order to qualify for the annual allocation
9 that must be in place.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: In doing so, if you
11 improve to meet the standards or go, is there any increase
12 in funding?
13 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STEELE: We have not had the
14 ability to do that for a number of years. As you're
15 probably aware, our allocation base has been stagnant for
16 probably 6 or 7 years.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Sure.
18 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STEELE: So it's difficult.
19 We want to kind of have a hold-harmless piece for that
20 allocation.
21 We are interested at some point, maybe down the
22 road, looking at a way to reinvest some of the savings that
23 we have seen through reducing our use of institutional care
24 for juveniles. We have had some very significant savings
25 over the past 10 years or so. We would like to see if 76
1 there is somehow we could reinvest and then use that as an
2 incentive fund for counties to improve their services even
3 more.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.
5 Thank you very much. I want to thank all of you
6 for taking your time to come before the Committee and
7 answer all our questions.
8 Again, I'm respectful to all of you for your time
9 and efforts, and thank you all.
10 With that, we will reconvene in 5 minutes to have
11 the Secretary of Health.
12
13 (At 3:24 p.m., the budget hearing adjourned.) 77
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