As of Thursday, August 10th, USGE continues to be in discussions with CSC related to the Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Reintegration (DRAOR) and Electronic Monitoring pilots. At the present time, USGE’s position remains unchanged and, as we advised in June, USGE is encouraging members to NOT participate in the DRAOR pilot.
CSC has advised USGE that it is now looking at “different options” in order to complete the DRAOR pilot project. USGE has been assured that its members will not be forced to complete the DRAOR and that no direct orders will be given to complete the tool. Updates will be provided to members when they become available.
Discussions between CSC and USGE regarding the Electronic Monitoring (EM) pilot project have led to an agreement that the Community Parole Officer Resource Formula (CPORF) should be amended to properly capture the work parole officers perform as part of EM. It has been agreed that the CPORF working group will conduct a review of the EM data collected in 2016/2017 and will discuss it at the working group meeting in October 2017.
The recommendation from the working group will then be forwarded to EXCOM for approval. It remains USGE’s position that funding must be provided to the front line for activities related to EM by the next fiscal year.
USGE is encouraged by CSC’s commitment to fund EM through CPORF and to make this a priority. As such, USGE is willing to encourage its members to support the Electronic Monitoring pilot moving forward.
USGE has requested that CSC provide regular updates on the EM pilot and that the front line work associated to EM be considered by management when assigning work to its parole officers, given that CPORF does not account for these activities currently. Details concerning these requests will also be forthcoming.
As mentioned in the last USGE update, the Commissioner will be providing a written response to USGE’s letter dated June 29th, 2017, in the near future. USGE has been informed that this letter will speak to USGE’s concerns regarding parole officer workload issues and what CSC is prepared to do to address these concerns.
In recent discussions with CSC, USGE has been advised that a review of institutional parole officer workloads will begin this fall. It is believed that this review will result in a more accurate way to measure institutional parole officer workloads and move away from a reliance on “ratios” that have no empirical evidence to support funding positions.