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Department of Corrections presents transition-bed math, IT projects and a $5.6M first-phase request for a new client management system
Summary
DOCR staff presented a line-by-line spreadsheet of transition, jail and reentry costs, staffing requests and IT priorities. The department requested $5.6 million for phase one of a multi-phase client management system; outside comparisons show total project costs typically run $17M–$37M depending on scope.
Michelle Zander, Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Corrections, walked the House Appropriations Committee — Human Resources Division through a detailed spreadsheet showing how the department calculated costs for transitional facilities, county holds, deferred admissions, work release and jail beds and how those calculations change under different per-diem assumptions.
Zander said the department used the executive recommendation as a starting point, then subtracted known transition and county-hold expenses to calculate remaining funds available for men’s and women’s populations. She described estimates that included transitional-facility and county-hold per diems, a $21.8 million executive recommendation number for transition, and a $16 million figure for jail-related costs. Zander also identified requests for specific projects: a Man Camp request totaling $9.3 million, a Grand Forks request of $16 million, and staffing requests including 12.5 FTEs for the Man Camp and a variety of FTEs across other locations.
On information technology, department staff presented a package of ongoing and new IT projects. Amy (DOCR staff) summarized maintenance requests for the department’s Avatar medical modules, ConnectND hosting and server costs; enhancements to the department’s offender-facing dashboards (Recidivus); robotic process automation; DocStars document management updates; and maintenance of the current Elite offender-management system. The department also described plans to upgrade its NX medical software to the vendor’s current version and to maintain body scanners, body-worn cameras, and tasers where appropriate.
The largest IT request the committee considered was a phased replacement of the department’s client management system. The Department of Corrections requested $5,600,000 for phase one and said it planned an RFP process beginning in late summer for an implementation that would likely be modular (adult, juvenile, women, parole and probation). Jesse Wetsch, technical business partner from North Dakota Information Technology (NDIT), told members his office looked at five comparable state projects and found implementation costs ranging from $17 million to $37 million depending on scope and included functionality.
Wetsch said the projects consulted were fully state funded and that the department had not identified federal grants to cover the client management-system implementation. He described a planned three-day workshop to finalize an RFI and an anticipated August RFP release. The department expects to spend most or all of the phase-one request during the upcoming biennium on vendor selection, initial design and modular implementation planning.
Committee members asked whether existing systems could generate the program and placement data they’ve requested at the push of a button. Amy said current systems (Elite and DocStars) can provide many reports but that data quality and cross-location standardization require additional resources and fixes. Committee members expressed interest in better, shareable datasets that show how many days individuals spend in specific facilities and which programs residents have participated in while incarcerated.
Why it matters: The department’s spreadsheet informed legislators about how per-diem assumptions and new facilities affect the total pool of available funds and showed how IT modernization is linked to managing cases, tracking programming, and supporting operations across multiple sites. The client management system is a multi-million-dollar modernization effort that would change how the department tracks custody, programming and reentry services.
What the committee asked for next: Committee members thanked staff for the line-item transparency and asked the department to return with clarifications where requested, including a more explicit breakout of FTE duties, confirmation of federal grant possibilities for body cameras/vests, and clearer estimates for ongoing operational costs tied to new facilities. The department said it would provide the RFI timeline and further budget detail as requested.
