Dan Shannon, director of the Wyoming Department of Corrections, outlined the department's budget reorganization and a set of 13 exception requests that together total $41,837,634 in requested dollars for the upcoming biennium.

Shannon told the Joint Appropriations Committee the requests include $9,312,374 in one-time funding to cover out-of-facility housing costs incurred when DOC relocated inmates (including placements in Mississippi) because of staffing vacancies. "In November '23, this department relocated inmates to Wyoming county jails and a prison in Mississippi as a result of staff vacancies," Shannon said. He told the committee that the department has returned 112 inmates and still has about 128 remaining out of state.

On costs, Shannon said the department paid roughly $15 million in out-of-state housing for the prior biennium and described day-rate differences: county jails can set daily rates by statute (varying in the transcript between $65 and $150), while DOC's internal per-inmate costs calculate to about $89/day for institutional operations and—after adding medical—about $122 to $124/day on average; private out-of-state contracts can carry additional unnegotiated medical costs, he said.

Workforce and capacity featured prominently. Shannon said DOC faces roughly 136 vacancies across the agency, of which about 80 are uniform corrections positions, and that reopening B Unit at the Wyoming State Penitentiary would require a net of 25 additional correctional officers. He said the agency has moved to reorganize units to improve transparency and will seek only necessary funding, not new positions.

The department also requested $12,250,000 one-time to replace two aging offender-management systems (WCIS and MONITOR). Shannon described the systems as antiquated and flagged their security risk: the systems are not receiving security patches and W C I S in particular has been identified as a critical security risk. The replacement was supported in testimony by ETS, which described the state-level risk and said the systems interface with many other state data systems.

Other requests included inflation funding (food, utilities, medical), a $700,000 increase in commissary spending authority (special revenue), and $779,414 for a 100-bed therapeutic community treatment contract (increase per-diem to $77.06), which Shannon said is cost‑effective compared with sending inmates out of state. Shannon asked the committee to consider $3,000,000 effective immediately on the offender-management request and said the full replacement would take 28-36 months to implement.

On staffing pay, Shannon said he would withdraw a $4.8 million raise request in favor of keeping an ongoing overtime adjustment of $400,000 tied to an earlier increase in the entry wage; committee members discussed how those sums appear across multiple budget pages. He also said medical-transportation and specialty care costs are rising and requested $600,000 ongoing for medical contract increases.

Shannon closed by offering to provide the committee with a written security/locks report (a prior supplemental request was partially vetoed) and by reiterating that DOC is requesting funds to pay statutory and operational necessities rather than program expansion. Members signaled they will follow up during markup and on the floor.