Appropriates $241,944,700 to the Department of Correction for fiscal year 2018; limits the number of authorized full-time equivalent positions to 1,987.85; and reappropriates certain unexpended and unencumbered balances.

This bill appropriates $241,944,700 to the Department of Correction for FY 2018 and caps the number of authorized full-time equivalent positions at 1,987.85. For program maintenance, the bill provides for the employer's share of increased benefit costs, inflationary adjustments, replacement items, statewide cost allocation, and cybersecurity insurance. The bill also provides for an ongoing 3% merit-based increase in employee compensation for permanent employees to be distributed at the discretion of the agency head. Thirteen line items are included, which provide $254,000 for wireless access; $463,800 for cloud-based software subscriptions; $377,300 to give pay raises to the department's instructors that correspond with those received by instructional staff in the public school setting; $411,200 to allow the department to pay overtime wages to its security staff as an alternative to allowing compensatory time to accrue; 2.00 FTP and $159,600 for an instructor and clinician to supplement the existing clinical staff at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution to allow the department to provide educational programming; a reduction of $255,000 for training savings; 1.00 FTP and $108,400 for expansion of the vocational work program to the South Boise Women's Correctional Center; $129,600 for wastewater treatment; $280,000 for expansion of a firing range; $53,600 to align the Correctional Alternative Placement appropriation with updated offender forecasts and bed utilization estimates; 12.00 FTP and $1,161,700 to hire new probation and parole officers (PPOs) in order to achieve offender-to-PPO caseload ratios of, at most, 50:1 for high, high-moderate, and low-moderate risk offenders and 170:1 for low risk offenders, in accordance with Section 20-219(4), Idaho Code; $36,500 to provide substance use disorder services; and $1,985,000 to align the Medical Services appropriation with updated offender forecasts and bed utilization estimates. Under budget law exceptions, the depar