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New inmate disciplinary oversight board says its reviews sharply increased removals of sentence credits and requests staff to scale work
Summary
The newly created inmate disciplinary oversight board told the committee it reviewed 11,000-plus class A incidents in 2024, contributed to a rise in removed sentence-credit days compared with pre-board totals and requested additional staff (deputy director and part-time IT manager) to handle workload and data issues.
The newly established Inmate Disciplinary Oversight Board told the Finance, Ways and Means Committee that it has reviewed tens of thousands of disciplinary incidents since it began operations and that the board's work materially increased the number of sentence-credit days removed for infractions.
A presenter identified in the hearing as director Stahl (presenting the board's request) said the board reviews "the grant denial and removal of inmate sentence credits for every inmate at each of the state's 14 correctional facilities," covering approximately 23,000 inmates. The presenter said the board recorded a substantial increase in disciplinary credit removals after it began work: TDOC chief of staff had told the committee that in 2022 about 2,253 days were removed; in calendar year 2024 that figure rose to more than 320,000 days (the board said its review added approximately 900 additional removed credit days after second-level review).
The board's chairman, Jerry Vassbinder, described duty-level work that board members perform reviewing case files and described a newly agreed-upon sanction matrix that increases baseline credit losses for repeated serious infractions. Vassbinder said the matrix now applies minimum credit losses at each step, for example a 1'to'2-month removal for a first offense and higher increments for subsequent offenses, and that the matrix allows for up to 60 months (5 years) of credit removal for offenses causing bodily harm to staff or inmates.
Why it matters: The board said it flagged inmates whose scheduled release dates did not match the recorded disciplinary reductions and notified TDOC prior to those releases. The board also said it detects systemic data and coding problems inside TDOC's offender management system (Thoma) that require manual work-arounds; two board members manually extract and reclassify incidents to ensure the oversight work is comprehensive.
The board requested funding to hire a full-time deputy director and a part-time IT manager and asked for recurring supplemental funds for general counsel and staff pay adjustments. Board presenters said the work is time-intensive: in 2024 nine board members reviewed about 11,908 incidents, conducted second-level reviews of dozens of cases and identified hundreds of extra credit days to be removed.
The committee asked whether TDOC had given the board access to the Thoma system. The board said it was given partial access to certain screens but not full access to all screens the board believes are useful (visitation screens and other disciplinary process screens were cited). Board members and lawmakers said greater access and additional IT support would reduce manual effort and improve oversight accuracy.
Ending: The board asked the committee to fund additional staff and recurring support to expand its review capacity and to resolve IT and data-access issues with TDOC; lawmakers requested follow-up and said the board should coordinate with TDOC to ensure statutory reporting and access align with oversight needs.
