Division of Parole

The Enacted Budget passed by the Legislature on May 1, 2003 makes no changes to the Executive Budget and adopts the merit termination and presumptive release legislation proposed by the Governor (see Sections E and N of S1406-B).

The Executive Budget recommends (analysis as of February 18, 2003):

• A workforce of 2,172 FTEs on March 31, 2004, a decrease of 63 FTEs from the adjusted estimated workforce of 2,235 FTEs on 3/31/03.  This reflects the attrition of 137 FTEs offset by 74 new FTE hires.  The 62 FTEs to be eliminated in SFY 2003-04 include 57 FTEs in Parole Operations and 6 FTEs in Administration.
• The adjusted FTE workforce for 3/31/03 is 100 FTEs lower than the 3/31/03 FTE workforce that was estimated in the SFY 2002-03 Executive Budget.  95 of these FTEs were eliminated in Parole Operations, including all 3 FTEs supported by federal funding, and the remaining 5 FTEs were eliminated in Administration.  These 100 FTEs probably include the 74 positions that will receive the early retirement incentive in SFY 2002-03. 
• A $641,000 reduction in the personal services appropriation for the Administration that appears to reflect the 11 FTEs eliminated in that program over SFY 2002-03 and 2003-04.  There is an unexplained $24,000 increase in the non-personal services appropriation for the Administration program.
• A $5,948,000 reduction in personal services appropriation for the Parole Operations that appears to reflect the 152 FTEs eliminated in that program over SFY 2002-03 and 2003-04.  The $268,000 reduction in nonpersonal service costs is related to proposed budget legislation that would require hearing reporters to only transcribe Parole Board hearings of inmates who are denied release.

·        Legislation that authorizes the Division of Parole to grant a merit termination of sentence to certain non-violent parolees and conditional or presumptive releasees who have served at least 1 year on parole supervision, provided that they have not been convicted of any new offense or engaged in any behavior that is deemed a significant violation of the conditions under which they were released. Non-violent felony offenders convicted of an A felony defined in Article 220 of the Penal Law will be eligible for merit termination of sentence after 2 years on parole supervision and non-violent offenders convicted of a B, C, D, or E felony will be eligible after 1 year. The Board of Parole is authorized to grant an absolute discharge from parole or conditional release when the parolee or conditional releasee has been on unrevoked community supervision for a period of at least 3 consecutive years, release is in the best interest of society, and the releasee has no pending restitution matters. The Division of Budget estimates that this bill will result in the merit termination of sentence of 3,100 releasees and achieve an annual cost savings of $1.6 million.  Based on this cost estimate, very few of the FTE reductions proposed in the Parole Operations program appear to be related to this proposal.

·        According to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, caseload reductions resulting from the proposed merit termination provisions will be offset by an increased amount of non-violent inmates released from DOCS. The Executive projects no major impact on the average Parole Officer's caseload.