FY 1997 Appropriations Report- Criminal Justice

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Criminal Justice

Judicial Branch

    The Judicial Branch has four courts of record. They include: The Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Trial Court (includes both the District and the Circuit), and the Juvenile Court. The various courts consist of 101 state judges and approximately 1,000 FTE staff. In addition, there are 105 Justice Courts operated within the framework of cities and counties. These local courts require an additional 123 judges who may or may not be attorneys. Details for the Criminal Justice Budgets can be found in Table 6

Courts Budget

    The total budget for the Courts for FY 1997 is $71,012,450. Growth from FY 1995 is approximately 11.44 percent. Criminal (felony) and Civil caseload growth is illustrated in the following figures:

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Highlights of the Legislative General Session are:

     Judicial salaries were increased along with those of other state employees. The District Court Judge, whose salary sets the salaries of all judges and the State Court Administrator, was raised to $89,550 per year.

     A new Juvenile Judge was added for the Eighth Judicial District in Vernal (Senate Bill 124, Expanding the Number of Judges).

    The Courts were given $30,000 as a FY 1996 Supplemental Appropriation to conduct the surveys required for the Judicial Retention Elections.

     A special one-time appropriation of $270,000 from the General Fund was provided to fund the installation of a video capability in the new Ogden Court facility.

     The appropriation for Jury, Witness and Interpreters, which has required supplemental appropriations for a number of years was increased by $50,000 to $1,031,600.

Corrections

    The total budget for corrections (both adult and youth) for FY 1997 is $189,366,000. This represents a 27.84 percent increase over the FY 1995 figures for an average growth rate of 9.28 percent per year for the most recent three-year budget period. Such growth makes corrections one of the fastest growing segments of the state budget. This is particularly significant in that the General Fund ($171,209,300) represents 90.42 percent of these budgets.

    With approximately 2,600 FTEs, the corrections systems represent almost one-seventh of all state employees.

Department of (Adult) Corrections

    The Department of Corrections is the adult correctional authority for the State. The mission of the Department is twofold. The first mission is to guarantee the safety of Utah Citizens by protecting the community. Secondly, the Department is charged with correcting the behavior problems of offenders in its charge so that they may rejoin society as law abiding citizens.

    Utah, like most of the United States, has been adding to the corrections populations by a prolonged period of get tough on crime legislation and enforcement. While crime and demographic factors among the most crime prone adult age groups have been fairly stable for a number of years at the prisons, parole and probation populations have been growing at an alarming rate.

Division of Field Operations

    Field Operations include Adult Probation and Parole, Community Corrections Centers and the Prerelease/Violators Center at Draper. Field Operations currently supervise over 13,000 offenders with approximately 527 FTEs.

    Workload for Adult Probation and Parole has been growing by approximately 8.5 percent. The rate of incarceration of new felons and the projections as to probation populations indicate that future growth will be at an alarming rate as shown by the following:

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Probation and Parole Workload Growth

     With the opening of the new Northern Utah Correctional Center the capacity of the Community Corrections Centers System will increase by 79 beds for a total of 353.

Division of Institutional Operations

    With an inmate population of approximately 4,150 and a state population of two million, the true incarceration rate of the state is 207 per 100,000. Although, this rate is one of the lowest in the United States it has grown from 89 per 100,000 in 1980 to the present level, while crime per 100,000 has remained almost constant.

    Assuming no change in the current policies of the government and actions of the Legislature, there is a projected growth rate of approximately 9 percent for inmate populations. This equates to the prison requiring almost 400 new

beds each year. This in turn means an annual construction cost of $24 million and an additional annual operations cost of $8.8 million. All of these funds come from the General Fund.

This year the Legislature authorized:

Remainding year funding, Uinta IV     144 beds    $1,575,000

Partial funding, Uinta IVa         192 beds     3,125,000

Jail contracting funds             100 beds     1,314,000

Addition to the contract for prerelease     100 beds     1,140,000

For a total of 536 new beds and 61 new FTEs.

Correctional Industries

    Utah Correctional Industries provides vocational training and work experience for inmates while providing income to the inmates and goods and services for state and local agencies. Operating from generated revenues, with more than 600 inmates gainfully employed per year, the projected budget for Corrections Industries is $10,274,000 in Dedicated Credits for FY 1997.

Jail Reimbursement

    This year the 20 percent increase in funding for jail reimbursement required under House Bill 162, Jail Reimbursement to Counties, 1993 General Session, was $1,591,800 in General Funds. This brings the state reimbursement to the counties for jail days sentenced by the courts as a condition of probation to $4,826,100 for FY 1997.

    Other highlight items in the FY 1997 budget include $65,000 in General Funds for rent to the National Guard for the Lone Peak Corrections Facility at Camp Williams and a special $1 million in General Funds for salary adjustments for correctional officers.

Division of Youth Corrections

    Youth Corrections is a Division within the Department of Human Services. Because of its unique interrelationships with the courts and the criminal justice system, it is included with Adult Corrections for Legislative review and analysis.

    The Division of Youth Corrections is responsible for all delinquent offenders committed to the division by the State's Juvenile Court Judges. The base budget for the division for FY 1997 is $42,846,400 of which $39,202,700 is from the General Fund. The FY 1997 budget represents a 29.3 percent growth over FY 1995 or a 9.8 percent increase per year.

At-Risk Population

    Utah has the youngest median age (25.7 years) of any state in the nation, and is 50 percent higher than the national average in school-aged-children. (The 10 to 17-year-old population, which is the population at-risk for Youth Corrections services, numbers approximately 300,000 in Utah.)

Youth Crime

    Crime statistics show that youth crime is not significantly different than the national average, however, it is a major element in Utah crime statistics due to the higher percentage of youth in the population. As with the nation, Utah youth are becoming somewhat more violent in their crimes. Evidence of this violence can be seen in the delinquency history of those in the most secure youth facilities.

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    The average youth in the system is 16 years old, has a history of both misdemeanors and felonies, and is involved with drugs or alcohol.

Department of Public Safety

    The objectives of the Department of Public Safety are to preserve order by: protecting lives, reducing the number and severity of traffic accidents, and reducing the losses and damage to life, health, property, and finances caused by illegal activity. The Department is the state's technical resource agency for state and local crime fighting and reduction efforts.

    Utah has been recently ranked 10th in the nation as a crime fighting state by the National Criminal Justice Commission.

    Total budget for the Department for FY 1997 is $59,857,400 of which, 44 percent or $33,331,400 comes from the General Fund.

Special Salary Increases for Officers

    With approximately 970 FTE the Department of Public Safety is one of the largest employing agencies in the state government. Within this staffing total there are a number of officers who are at-risk as peace officers as a matter of their day-to-day duties, (i.e. Highway Patrol, investigations, etc.)

The Legislature provided a special $1 million in General Funds for FY 1997 for salary adjustments for Certified Peace Officers.

    In a related action the passage of Senate Bill 99, "Peace Officers in Capitol," changed the status of officers charged with Capitol Security.

Facility and Personnel Security Study

    Over the last several years, growth in the state has caused several new buildings to be occupied by state activities within the Salt Lake valley. Recognizing that such growth has not been paralleled by increases in protective services, staffing and budgets, the Legislature directed that:

    It is the intent of the Legislature that a study be conducted by the Department of Public Safety, the Division of Facilities Construction and Management, and the major state agencies concerning the security of state facilities and employees. The results of this study shall be presented at the October 1996 meeting of the Executive Appropriations Committee.

Driving Under the Influence (DUI) Unit

    The DUI unit of the Department was initially funded with federal dollars. This year the Legislature provided a $90,000 General Fund Supplemental Appropriation to finish out FY 1996. For FY 1997 the Highway Patrol was given funding for 10 additional troopers with the following intent language:

    It is the intent of the Legislature that seven of the new troopers assigned to the Utah Highway Patrol be used for the DUI unit.

Peace Office Status and Training

    The growth of peace officers in a variety of state and local agencies

and the increasing question as to peace officer status for Youth Corrections workers in certain assignments caused the Legislature to provide for a comprehensive review. This review is included in the following intent language:

    It is the intent of the Legislature that the Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) Council, in conjunction and cooperation with the Utah Law Enforcement Strategic Planning Committee, conduct a review of the law enforcement and correctional training programs administered by state criminal justice agencies.

Drivers License Division Budget

    Under Senate Bill 51, "Driver License Fee Accounting", the receipts of the Driver's License Division will no longer go into the Transportation Fund, but will flow into a new Transportation Fund - Restricted Account called the "Department of Public Safety Restricted Account." Future funding for the Division will come from this account which, for the initial several years, will make the Division essentially self-funding from collections.


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