Relating to probation, including discharge credits, educational credits, and workforce credits, and including effective date provisions

Description

House File 570 provides that an individual on probation will earn discharge credits, educational credits, and workforce credits that reduce the individual’s term of probation. The maximum reduction of the individual’s probation term earned through these credits may not exceed 40.0% of the probation period imposed. The individual will not be discharged from probation until probation fees and court debt have been paid or are subject to a payment plan. The Department of Corrections (DOC) will adopt administrative rules.

The Bill provides that at least twice per year, an individual’s probation officer must provide the individual with an accounting of the individual’s accrued discharge credits, educational credits, and workforce credits.

The Bill requires the DOC to make publicly available an annual report by December 1 related to discharge credits, educational credits, and workforce credits; the total number of supervision days reduced; and the number of defendants who terminated probation early. The Bill takes effect July 1, 2026 (FY 2027).

Background

According to Iowa Code section 907.1, probation is the procedure under which a defendant, against whom a judgment of conviction of a public offense has been or may be entered, is released by the court subject to supervision by a resident of the State or by a Community-Based Corrections (CBC) judicial district.

Under Iowa Code section 907.9, at any time that the court or the probation officer determines that the purposes of probation have been fulfilled and probation fees and court debt have been paid, the court or the probation officer may order the discharge of a person from probation. The probation officer must have the approval of the CBC district director and notify the sentencing court and the county attorney who prosecuted the case. The sentencing judge may order a hearing on its own motion, or must order a hearing upon the request of the county attorney, for the review of the discharge. Following the hearing, the court must approve or rescind the discharge. If a hearing is not ordered within 30 days, the person on probation must be discharged.

Figure 1 shows the average length of stay on probation by offense class. Figure 1 — FY 2024 Average LOS on Probation

Assumptions

• The following will not change over the projection period: charge, conviction, and sentencing patterns and trends; prisoner length of stay (LOS); revocation rates; plea bargaining; and other criminal justice system policies and practices.
• A lag effect of six months is assumed from the effective date of this Bill to the date of first entry of affected offenders into the correctional system.
• Marginal costs for county jails cannot be estimated due to a lack of data. For purposes of this analysis, the marginal cost for county jails is assumed to be $50 per day.
• The marginal cost per day of probation is $7.68.
• The DOC will incur costs for programming the Iowa Corrections Offender Network (ICON) system to calculate and program the credit requirements and to create a report to summarize credits. The DOC estimates that it will incur approximately $383,000 in one-time programming costs for the generation of public reports detailing the number of defendants on probation who earned discharge credits, educational credits, and workforce credits that year.

Cost related to additional staff time are calculated using the following assumptions:

• There are approximately 29,800 individuals who are supervised on probation by the DOC each year.
• The discharge credit, educational credit, and workforce credit will require probation officer time to verify compliance with the terms of probation, verify education status, and verify employment status.
• The DOC reports that each credit will require 1.0 additional hour of probation officer time per individual per year to perform the necessary verification, for a total of 3.0 hours per individual.
• The DOC reports that it will take approximately 0.5 hours of probation officer time per individual per year to provide each individual with an accounting of credits accrued.
• For this estimate, the hourly rate for a probation officer, including benefits, is $53.14, which is the salary and benefit midpoint for Probation and Parole Officers.Offense Class LOS (Months) Class B Felony (Persons) 80.1

Class B Felony (Nonpersons) 25.5 Class B Felony (Sex) 168.5 Class C Felony (Persons) 37.8 Class C Felony (Nonpersons) 16.9 Class C Felony (Sex) 55.6 Class D Felony (Persons) 18.7 Class D Felony (Nonpersons) 13.1 Class D Felony (Sex) 24.0 Aggravated Misdemeanor (Persons) 9.5 Aggravated Misdemeanor (Nonpersons) 8.7 Aggravated Misdemeanor (Sex) 11.4

Serious Misdemeanor N/A

Correctional Impact

The correctional impact cannot be determined as it is unknown how many individuals would be eligible to receive probation credits. Refer to the Legislative Services Agency (LSA) memo addressed to the General Assembly, Cost Estimates Used for Correctional Impact Statements, dated January 13, 2025, for information related to the correctional system.

Minority Impact

The minority impact of HF 570 cannot be estimated because the effect on the LOS of individuals on probation cannot be determined. Of the individuals on probation in FY 2024, 69.5% were White, 17.6% were Black, and 12.9% were other races. Iowa’s population is 85.6% White, 3.8% Black, and 5.6% other races. Refer to the LSA memo addressed to the General Assembly, Minority Impact Statement, dated January 13, 2025, for information related to minorities in the criminal justice system.

Fiscal Impact

The fiscal impact of the change in individuals’ LOS on probation under HF 570 cannot be estimated.

According to the DOC, HF 570 is estimated to increase the workload for probation officers to verify eligibility for discharge credits, education credits, and employment credits for supervised clients. Programming enhancement and maintenance expenses would be covered through existing internal DOC resources from the Iowa Corrections Offender Network appropriation but would require each prison and district to contribute a portion of their local budgets. Review and validation of credits are estimated to require an additional 49.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions. The estimated cost is approximately $5.9 million in FY 2027, which includes approximately $383,000 in one-time programming costs, and approximately $5.5 million beginning in FY 2028 and each year thereafter.

Figure 2 — Annual Costs to the DOC Under HF 572

Sources

• Department of Corrections
• Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning (CJJP), Department of Management (DOM)