Legislative budget writers have set a budget for the Idaho Department of Correction next year that reflects a 2.3 percent increase in state general funds and a drop of 0.1 percent in total funds, and the number of additional probation and parole officers to be added as part of the state’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative was cut in half from 24 to 12.

“I think it challenges our department to be more creative and efficient with assigning caseloads to our parole and probation officers,” said Corrections Director Henry Atencio. “Our goal is to drive down our caseloads for our moderate and high-risk offenders.” Twelve new officers will help, he said.

The change came because Idaho’s prison population has begun growing again, forcing the cancellation of a $4 million reversion from the prison budget that had been anticipated due to flat inmate numbers.

“I don’t think we know for sure why that’s occurring,” Atencio said. The number of “termer” inmates – those behind bars for long sentences – actually is dropping. But the numbers of short-term inmates, including those sentenced through retained-jurisdiction “rider” programs, are up. “That’s a judicial decision at the point of sentencing,” Atencio said. The numbers of probation and parole violators going back behind bars also are up.

The Justice Reinvestment Initiative is aimed at reserving prison cell space for the most dangerous offenders.

Gov. Butch Otter had proposed just a 1.4 percent increase in state general funds for corrections next year, with the 24 new positions included; but that was before the change in inmate numbers. Otter had recommended $2.3 million for the new probation officers; the budget set today included a total of $1.2 million for the increase, $846,200 of that from state general funds.

“We certainly appreciate the legislators’ support for our agency and for public safety,” Atencio said. “We understand the greater needs of the state as well. We’ll do the best we can with this allocation.”

The prison budget, crafted by Reps. Rick Youngblood, R-Nampa, and Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, and Sen. Jeff Agenbroad, R-Nampa, was approved in the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee this morning on a series of unanimous, 19-0 votes. It totals $220.1 million in state general funds; $245 million in total funds.

Sen. Abby Lee, R-Fruitland, said, “I appreciate all the work that the committee did on this budget and I will be supportive of it. But … I personally understood that we were going to be looking at 24 positions.” She said that’s what discussions on the Senate side have focused on, regarding “what was going to be happening to address what I consider to be a critical community safety concern.”

“I still remain concerned that we have a current need, a dire need, in our communities to make sure that these offenders who are not able to comply with societal norms and laws when they get out in these communities” are appropriately supervised.

JFAC Co-Chair Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, said, “I think we all share those concerns.”

The budget calls on the department to report semi-annually to both the governor’s Division of Financial Management and the Legislative Services Office on the monthly number of probationers and parolees under supervision, along with their assessed and supervised risk levels.