Investigators release DOC report, no 'smoking gun'

OLYMPIA – The governor’s investigation into the Department of Corrections (DOC) cites incompetence and systematic failures as reasons for the early release of more than 3,000 inmates.

The investigators, Robert Westinghouse and Carl Blackstone, reported the failures to address the sentencing error were not intentional nor malicious. A programming error in 2002 caused thousands of inmates to be released early until 2015, when the error was fixed.

“There was a substantial failure to recognize and act on a known problem,” said Gov. Jay Inslee about the report. Later he commented, “when somebody’s climbing over the wall, we’d send the bloodhounds and pull the fire alarm, that did not happen here, and it’s inexcusable.”

The investigation included interviewing 58 witnesses and reviewing over 134,000 pages of documents.

The programming error was not discovered until December 2012. The report points to a lack of effective structure for prioritization in the DOC’s IT department, as well as poor judgment by some employees, as to why it took so long for the problem to be fixed.

One of those instances of poor judgment included the advice then Assistant Attorney General Ronda Larson gave to not hand calculate offenders’ release dates while the program was being fixed. Larson resigned on Feb. 11.

Larson has said that when she gave the advice she thought it would not take long to fix the problem, nor did she know how many offenders it would affect.

One main reason the programming fix was not acted upon earlier was Dave Dunnington, the IT business manager, “failed to recognize the significance” of the problem or “properly prioritize” the fix to correct it, according to the report.

Dunnington kept pushing back the date to start fixing the problem, the report says.

Doug Hoffer, DOC chief information officer, was, for the most part, not aware of the problem or its many delays. The report says Hoffer “took no action to involve himself in this particular problem.”

Gov. Jay Inslee announced he would follow through on all of the recommendations made by the investigators in the report. The one he focused on most was restructuring the IT department, which is said is already in progress.

Inslee said he would take “personnel action,” but did not disclose what that action will be. He said that information will be announced within the next few days.

“We want to make sure employees have every opportunity to tell their story,” he said about not disclosing what action he would take, nor toward whom.

The report states that DOC secretary at the time, Bernie Warner, nor his replacement Dan Pacholke, were aware of the issue before mid December, 2015.

Senators Steve O’Ban, R-Tacoma, and Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, argued at a press conference that Bernie Warner may have had more fault than the governor’s investigation suggested.

“The whole story is not really completely told,” said Padden about the report.

The senators discussed a project that Warner was involved in called Strong-R. Based on testimony heard Thursday, they suggested Warner’s focus on the project may have deprioritized fixing the sentencing error.

“The amount of time being spend on his priority, on this Strong-R project, we felt to some degree interfered with the operations to the rest of the department,” said Padden.

The report states that while the Strong-R project may have contributed to a negative atmosphere in the DOC and the IT group, it had little to do with the sentencing problem because almost all of the project was handled by an outside firm. This firm had no part in the sentencing programming.

Another recommendation included creating an ombudsman position at the DOC so concerns about the agency by employees can be heard.

To see the full report and the documents the investigators evaluated, visit

www.governor.wa.gov.