DOC employees testify during Senate hearing

OLYMPIA — The Senate Law and Justice Committee heard testimony regarding the Senate’s ongoing investigation into the Department of Corrections (DOC) early release of inmates. Two DOC employees, the assistant attorney general who advised the DOC, and a citizen who notified the DOC of the calculations error testified under oath Monday.

The hearing happened the same day the office of the committee chair, Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, received a letter informing him the governor’s independent investigation had been completed, said Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle.

Padden did not mention the letter, but indicated the Senate’s investigation would continue.

“There’s still a lot of questions,” he said after the hearing. Padden said there are plans to have more employees from the IT department at the DOC at another hearing later in the week. He did not specify which employees would testify.

At Monday’s hearing, the committee heard from Matthew Mirante Sr., Kent, who notified the DOC there was an error in a sentencing calculation.

Mirante learned in 2012 that a prisoner who had stabbed Mirante’s son was going to be released. Mirante, who had been following the prisoner’s case, said he calculated the sentence and found the release date to be incorrect.

Mirante said the calculations he used to arrive at the correct release date of the prisoner took around five minutes.

The committee also heard from a panel of three state employees: Wendy Stigall, a records program administrator for the DOC; Sue Schuler, IT specialist/business analyst for the DOC; and Ronda Larsen, assistant attorney general who advised the DOC.

The panel discussed problems in the agency with taking action once a potential problem with the system had been discovered in 2012.

In Stigall’s request to change the system, made in 2013, she indicated the request should be dealt with as soon as possible. The error was not fixed until 2015.

Schuler said the fix was listed as a 2 on a priority rating from 1 to 4, 1 being a top priority. She said later upper IT and DOT management downgraded the rating to 3. Schuler said she did not know the reason for the action.

Schuler said during this time the IT department had lost a significant number of staff members.

Sen. Jeannie Darneille, D-Tacoma, said this likely caused a lot of the problems.

“We’re going to find out that, just like every company that loses pivotal staff in terms of project management that there is, even if you fill the position, you still have lag time with efficiencies,” said Darneille.

Darneille believes the cutting of the department was largely due to the recession.

Padden expressed concern that the problems with the IT department at DOC indicated a problem with the “culture.”

“You still wonder about the culture, I wonder about cutting the IT department at a time like this,” Padden said about the department at the time.

The Democrats on the committee questioned whether the investigation was an appropriate use of Senate funds.

“I’m not sure what we’re doing here,” said Pedersen. He said a more efficient use of resources would be to examine the findings from the governor’s investigation, attempt to identify gaps that may exist, and focus on those.

There will be another public hearing for the investigation at 8 a.m. Thursday.