Chronicling compliance, oversight cuts at TDCJ

Eric Dexheimer at the Austin Statesman today has an interesting story on how budget cuts will affect compliance/enforcement positions at Texas state agencies. He included this tidbit about TDCJ:

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, too, said the loss of compliance-related jobs won't affect its operations.

The agency shrunk by 760 positions as the result of budget cuts since 2009. Seventeen of those losses could be considered oversight or compliance positions, agency spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.

Among them: two prison health services employees who audited vendor contract compliance, three internal auditors and three roving compliance officers from the Private Facility Contract Monitoring/Oversight Division. The division keeps an eye on private prisons to make sure the facilities follow Texas corrections rules.

The state prison agency also lost five investigators and supervisors from the Office of Inspector General, "which, as the law enforcement arm of the prison system, ensures that employees and inmates are compliant in following state and federal laws," Lyons explained.

Grits hadn't realized the Lege had reduced the number of OIG staff nor compliance/enforcement officers related to private prisons, which on its face seems problematic when in the same budget the Lege opened the door to wider private prison contracting.