"SUPERVISING REGION INCENTIVE ACT"                                                            S.B. 17:

                                                                                                    SUMMARY OF BILL

                                                                                      REPORTED FROM COMMITTEE

Senate Bill 17 (as reported without amendment)

Sponsor:  Senator Mike Shirkey

Committee:  Michigan Competitiveness

CONTENT

The bill would create the "Supervising Region Incentive Act" to do the following:

-- Require the Department of Corrections (DOC) to adopt a supervising region incentive program to be offered to field operations administration regions that agreed to seek at least a 10% reduction in parole and probation revocations within an 18-month period.

-- Create the "Supervising Region Incentive Fund" and require the DOC to spend money in the Fund for incentives and assistance to field operations administration regions implementing practices, procedures, and sanctions directed at parole and probation revocation reduction.

-- Require the DOC to make a portion of the money in the Fund available to a region that entered into an agreement with the Department, for the region to begin implementing the supervision practices.

-- Allow a region otherwise to receive incentive funding only if it achieved at least a 10% reduction in parole and probation revocations within an 18-month period.

-- Allow a region to receive additional funding if, after three years, it achieved an additional reduction of at least 10% in parole and probation revocations within a one-year period.

-- Allow incentive funding to be used only for specified purposes.

                                                                              Legislative Analyst:  Suzanne Lowe

FISCAL IMPACT

The bill would have an indeterminate fiscal impact on the State and no fiscal impact on local government. It would target probation and parole revocations both for technical violations and for new offenses. The Department of Corrections supervises approximately 63,000 probationers and parolees each year. From 2012 to 2014, the State averaged 6,120 combined probation and parole revocations that led to imprisonment per year. It is not known if or by how much the bill's incentives would encourage supervising regions to reduce revocations.

For any decrease in prison intakes, in the short term, the marginal savings to State government would be approximately $3,764 per prisoner per year. In the long term, if the decreased intake of prisoners reduced the total prisoner population enough to allow the DOC to close a housing unit or an entire facility, the marginal savings to the State would be approximately $34,550 per prisoner per year. For comparison, it costs the State approximately $3,024 per year to supervise a person on probation and $5,260 to supervise a person on parole.

The amount appropriated for incentives would be at the discretion of the Legislature. The FY 2016-17 Corrections budget appropriated $3.0 million for the incentives.

Date Completed:  1-27-17                                                    Fiscal Analyst:  Ryan Bergan

This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.