CPM Student Projects

All retained jurisdiction offenders who successfully complete the 'rider program' will spend 30 to 90 days, on community supervision, prior to returning to their sentencing judge for review of their retained jurisdiction program.

This will provide:

A continuum of services, for offenders, in accordance with the "What Works" research.
Reduce recidivism rates of retained jurisdiction offenders.
Provide more accurate information, to the court, regarding offender adaptability to community supervision.
Provide an increased incentive for offenders to comply with and participate in a community supervision program.
Opportunities for programming with the offender and their family that is not available with current rider program structure.
Reduce incarceration cost for counties and the department.
Reduce exposure to inmate culture.

This project achieved the goals described above. However, due to lack of adequate staffing the project was discontinued. As an unintended consequence of this project the average length of stay at the retained jurisdiction program dropped from 130 days to 105 days. This significantly increased the program capacity at the North Idaho Correctional Institution which in turn provided more programming for more offenders while saving Idaho taxpayers a significant amount of money.

The goal statement is "To create a quality improvement toolkit that will assist supervisors and staff in organizing ideas, understanding processes, discovering the cause of problems, planning and selecting solutions, evaluating activities and collecting and analyzing date to improve how we do our work."

The toolkit is a resource on the Department of Health & Welfare’s Learning University Sharepoint Site. The toolkit is part of Department’s Leadership Development Series – Applied Leadership/Supervision Series III: Breathrough to Quality.

Goal: Make available to the public a means to get answers online to questions commonly asked of the Commission and Bureau staff. Ultimately provide direction and the resources necessary for taxpayers to make anonymous referrals of nonfilers, identify Idaho's filing requirements, and better understand Idaho's tax laws.

Changes Made: The Commission realizes that situations occur that leave business and individual taxpayers perplexed once they recognize their inability to pay or file timely tax returns. Before my CPM project, the Commission Web site had little to no information to aid taxpayers in resolving issues of delinquency, reporting unfiled tax returns, or understanding laws and tax discovery related issues. After reviewing the websites of all other 49 states, and receiving input from Commission and Tax Discovery staff, I presented a draft of proposed additions to the Commission's Web site to the Office of Communication & Education. Ultimately I submitted the final revision to the Commission's webmaster who updated the Commission's Web site by publishing the new information to the Internet.

Impact on the Commission: Tax Discovery staff works year-round to educate taxpayers, encourage voluntary compliance, and secure unfiled returns. Around April 15th, the Taxpayer Service Department of the Commission also dedicates resources to responding to taxpayer inquiries as they relate to the taxpayers' inability to pay or file timely tax returns. Providing answers online to Frequently Asked Questions, establishing an email address linked directly to the Bureau, and posting pertinent telephone numbers on the Internet has relieved discovery staff of time otherwise dedicated to manual research, completing prior year tax returns in hardcopy, and typing letters sent via snail-mail. This more effective use of time and resources has allowed the Bureau to realign duties and expend resources where they more effectively meet the goals and missions of both the Bureau and the Commission.

The project depicts the process of applying for a federal grant. It includes a chart outlining the application process flow for new and existing federal grants. It details the application routing, review, and approval requirements. Also included are the various identification numbers, codes, and certifications along with the standard forms needed for a grant application.

Web sites are also listed for various federal agencies that provide grant information and instructions for completing an application for their programs.

A web based survey of Department of Health and Welfare managers and supervisors revealed that many had not received formal training regarding employment law or how to conduct lawful employment interviews. Based upon these findings, an extensive interview and employee hiring guide was developed titled, "Interview and Hiring Strategies for Managers and Supervisors." The guide provides an overview of key federal and state employment laws. Additionally, a number of tools for managers and supervisors to utilize when planning for and conducting employment interviews were developed.

My goal and vision for this project were met by developing, creating, and implementing a consistent, easy to find, easy to use, online guide for new and existing employees to access their resources. With a staff and call volume increase, this Online Resource Manual offers resource specialists quick and easy access to accurate important information needed to perform their daily job duties. We have decreased our caller 'hold' time because there is less staff confusion about resources and where to find them. An overall anonymous evaluation showed, employees are confident and happy in finding complete, accurate, and current resources in one easy to find and easy to access place, the 211 Idaho CareLine Online Resource Manual.

This Online Resource Manual has replaced most of the miscellaneous paper lists from people's desks, eliminating clutter as well as confusion, and has continued on as a never-ending work in progress. The finished product is still being used today, and has become even more than I ever thought it would be.

Following reductions in staff resources and statewide business realignment, we identified a need to reorganize the work functions assigned to our region to better utilize the current resources, while continuing to streamline our processes, and address the anticipated continued loss of staff resources to do the job. Current data was used to determine the minimum number of resources needed to maintain a specific function. Work was divided based on function and assigned based on resources available to complete the tasks. Functions were assigned to field offices for maintenance while the Intake function was continued in all offices to meet customer service expectations.

IDOC has a great need to track the variables and measurements of the individual worksites to ensure the proper and accurate information is being gathered, reviewed and interpreted. Prior to VAMPS in excess of 15 reports per week were being drafted and distributed. Much of the information was listed in more than one report and the information statistics did not always coincide. VAMPS defined what information needed to be gathered and placed it in a very basic user friendly excel program for staff to review and enter the data. By compling the information we could quickly ascertain certain factors to watch such as if the number of medical calls from offenders rose with the rising of commissary purchases and offenders being placed in segregation for minor offenses, the the intelligence sergeant may be looking into possible riot or gang related stress.

The project was a minor success as shortly after its implementation at Idaho Correctional Institution-Orofino, the department developed a web based program to capture and interpret the same data department wide.