January 23, 2019, Katie Meyer - WHYY
Thanks to a law passed two years ago, Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office is now required to periodically create what are known as performance-based budget reports on state agencies — basically, analyses measuring program funding against actual outcomes.
A legislative board formed to assess those reports held its first-ever hearing Tuesday.
The IFO focused on the Corrections Department this time around. Its key takeaways included a list of new data points for the department to track, broken into 13 categories like assessing public safety risk, parole supervision, and alcohol and drug treatment.
The parole category saw some of the most significant recommendations, like recording parole officers’ average caseloads and reporting the number of parolees who are monitored electronically.