Pardon and Parole Board cites ICON rollout, automation goals and staff shortages

Tom Bates, executive director of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, told the Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and Judiciary that the agency has moved its pardon and parole records into the ICON offender-management system and is pursuing automation to shorten paperwork and improve efficiency.

Bates said the board's work balances public safety, offender accountability, reentry and victims’ rights, and described the ICON rollout and rule revisions as the agency’s main accomplishments. He told senators the ICON module for the pardon and parole function went live in November and that staff are still stabilizing the system, identifying needed tweaks and training users.

The shift to ICON and other automation is meant to reduce the time between a board-approved parole and transmittal to the governor; Bates described the current interval as “30 to 45 days” and said the agency hopes to cut that toward 10 days by digitizing paperwork. He framed the change as both a public-safety and fiscal concern, noting daily incarceration costs when paperwork delays keep people in custody.

Bates and other staff also told the panel that staffing remains the board’s largest operational challenge. The agency said it has rearranged duties and roles and plans to add two investigators funded last year; those positions have not yet been filled because the agency remained focused on stabilizing ICON. Leroy Long, the board’s field director, described an investigative team of 15 investigators and three supervisors who cover 29 facilities and who continue to conduct in-person facility interviews in addition to using scanned records from ICON.

The board reported that it docketed 4,689 new arrivals for parole eligibility and that some categories of cases — administrative parole dockets and serious misconduct dockets — do not receive full reports. Bates said the agency reviewed and revised administrative rules and policies this year, including rules around commutations, and worked to make reports and case materials available electronically to board members, prosecutors and victims.

The Pardon and Parole staff described a recent operational change to bring revocation hearings back in-house, which the agency said produced about $35,000 in savings. During questioning, a senator referenced “152 revocations”; staff corrected that there were 41 hearings on revocations in the cited period and said the agency does not currently track a standard recidivism or revocation-rate metric but could follow up with methodology and data to approximate a rate if requested. Kyle Counts, general counsel and legislative liaison, said the agency does not currently track recidivism in the way some other parts of the system do but offered to provide follow-up data.

On budget, Bates said the board submitted a flat budget request for the coming year and told senators the agency could “get by” with a 2% reduction but would manage carefully. The presentation closed after committee members asked clarifying questions about staffing levels, investigative duties and the ICON transition.

The board’s presentation to the committee was primarily informational; no motions or votes on agency funding were recorded during the segment.