DPSCS Budget Review Flags Staffing, Rising Overtime and Medical Contract Dispute; Secretary Details Hires and Reentry Plans
January 25, 2024 | Public Safety, Transportation, and Environment Subcommittee, Budget and Taxation Committee, SENATE, SENATE, Committees, Legislative, Maryland
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The Department of Legislative Services presented an overview of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) budget, highlighting staffing shortfalls, overtime trends, a medical‑care contract dispute and underutilized community reentry agreements.
Jacob Cash (DLS) said DPSCS’s average daily population in fiscal 2023 was 17,897 (including local jail holds), reversing a longer‑term decline with a 1.4% rise from 2022 to 2023 driven primarily by sentenced populations. He said correctional officer (CO) filled positions have declined while administrative fill rates improved, and DLS flagged rising overtime utilization in recent years that could outpace the overtime allowance in fiscal 2025.
Cash described a contract dispute with Horizon (now YesCare) that DLS said led to a recommended settlement and deficiency requests; DLS cited a roughly $39.7 million figure that combined settlement payments and waived liquidated damages and noted questions about how the department will award replacement contracts within the proposed appropriation. DLS recommended committee narrative asking DPSCS to report when healthcare or mental‑health contract awards are made and to explain the budgetary context.
Cash also reported reentry programming shortfalls: a long‑unused Threshold contract for men in Baltimore City, low utilization of some local reentry agreements (Dorchester county was cited as one example of low awareness or uptake), a waitlist of 433 for vocational/educational programs and that only 1% of participants were categorized with substance‑use‑disorder treatment as a primary assignment (DLS said secondary and tertiary assignments data should be provided to better capture total participation).
Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs (DPSCS) corrected some DLS figures and described the department’s response: she said the amount listed for the YesCare settlement represented a $20 million payment for 17 contract claims and a separate $19.7 million in liquidated damages that the department waived under the settlement; she also said the contract extension earlier in the fiscal year was a no‑cost, time‑only extension. Scruggs detailed aggressive recruitment and hiring strategies — same‑day hiring events, conditional offers, on‑site background checks and bonuses — and reported a drop in the department vacancy rate (from a January high to about 10.46% as of the hearing), including hiring 364 new correctional officers in 2023.
Scruggs said DPSCS has contracted for a full assessment of substance‑use disorder needs, opened a therapeutic treatment center in a pretrial facility and expects another program to open at the women’s facility; she also described Maryland Correctional Enterprises job training programs that lead to community employment.
Committee members requested an overtime plan, more granular participant data for reentry and programming, and follow‑up on unpaid outside provider claims tied to the medical contract transition in Western Maryland. DPSCS agreed to provide contract award information and clarified that it will report additional programming participation data in annual submissions.
The subcommittee did not take final votes on DPSCS budget items and requested follow‑up reporting and technical documentation on hiring practices and procurement.
Jacob Cash (DLS) said DPSCS’s average daily population in fiscal 2023 was 17,897 (including local jail holds), reversing a longer‑term decline with a 1.4% rise from 2022 to 2023 driven primarily by sentenced populations. He said correctional officer (CO) filled positions have declined while administrative fill rates improved, and DLS flagged rising overtime utilization in recent years that could outpace the overtime allowance in fiscal 2025.
Cash described a contract dispute with Horizon (now YesCare) that DLS said led to a recommended settlement and deficiency requests; DLS cited a roughly $39.7 million figure that combined settlement payments and waived liquidated damages and noted questions about how the department will award replacement contracts within the proposed appropriation. DLS recommended committee narrative asking DPSCS to report when healthcare or mental‑health contract awards are made and to explain the budgetary context.
Cash also reported reentry programming shortfalls: a long‑unused Threshold contract for men in Baltimore City, low utilization of some local reentry agreements (Dorchester county was cited as one example of low awareness or uptake), a waitlist of 433 for vocational/educational programs and that only 1% of participants were categorized with substance‑use‑disorder treatment as a primary assignment (DLS said secondary and tertiary assignments data should be provided to better capture total participation).
Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs (DPSCS) corrected some DLS figures and described the department’s response: she said the amount listed for the YesCare settlement represented a $20 million payment for 17 contract claims and a separate $19.7 million in liquidated damages that the department waived under the settlement; she also said the contract extension earlier in the fiscal year was a no‑cost, time‑only extension. Scruggs detailed aggressive recruitment and hiring strategies — same‑day hiring events, conditional offers, on‑site background checks and bonuses — and reported a drop in the department vacancy rate (from a January high to about 10.46% as of the hearing), including hiring 364 new correctional officers in 2023.
Scruggs said DPSCS has contracted for a full assessment of substance‑use disorder needs, opened a therapeutic treatment center in a pretrial facility and expects another program to open at the women’s facility; she also described Maryland Correctional Enterprises job training programs that lead to community employment.
Committee members requested an overtime plan, more granular participant data for reentry and programming, and follow‑up on unpaid outside provider claims tied to the medical contract transition in Western Maryland. DPSCS agreed to provide contract award information and clarified that it will report additional programming participation data in annual submissions.
The subcommittee did not take final votes on DPSCS budget items and requested follow‑up reporting and technical documentation on hiring practices and procurement.
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