Senate report on Corrections scandal approved by Law and Justice committee

Sens. Steve O’Ban, R-Pierce County, and Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, announce results of the Senate DOC investigation at a May 25 news conference.

PUYALLUP… The Senate Law and Justice Committee, meeting Thursday at Puyallup City Hall, gave formal approval to a report on the deadly prisoner releases by the Department of Corrections that turned loose some 3,000 of the state’s most violent and dangerous criminals before their sentences had expired.

The report lays the blame on executives in the Department of Corrections and the officials in the governor’s office who turned a blind eye to the obvious indications of the agency’s management dysfunction. Two deaths so far have been linked to the Department of Corrections’ error.

“I can understand how painful this must be for the governor’s office,” said Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley. “It is never easy accepting responsibility for your own mistakes. But it is the right thing to do in this case. This was one of the worst management failures in the history of Washington state government, and it has left two people dead.”

The report summarizes the Senate’s independent four-month investigation. The governor’s office earlier released a narrowly-focused report that blamed middle managers, absolved a secretary who had been appointed by the governor, and made no mention of the duty of the governor’s office to keep tabs on executive-branch agencies.

The Senate Law and Justice Committee approved its report on a party-line vote, with the Democrats on the committee voting no.

The Department of Corrections learned in 2012 that its computers had been calculating sentences incorrectly for a decade, yet delayed a software fix for three years while it continued to release prisoners early. The mistake involved felons convicted of armed crimes and sexual violence. The Senate investigation established that top DOC executives had sufficient knowledge to take action, yet failed to do so – and they displayed a remarkable lack of curiosity when middle managers flagged the matter to their attention. Instead, they continued to divert agency time and resources to an ambitious and still-incomplete computer project.

In addition, the Senate investigation found the governor’s office had sufficient knowledge of the early-release issue to make inquiries, and it ignored other warning signs of management problems, including heavy turnover in the agency’s IT department and reorganizations that made no sense. The investigation found a personal relationship between the agency’s former secretary, Bernie Warner, and a senior member of the governor’s staff may have discouraged inquiries because it was not addressed appropriately.

“Yesterday the governor’s office released a curious statement indicating that our investigation revealed nothing new,” Padden said. “We should note that the governor’s investigation exonerated Warner and said nothing about the role the governor’s office should have played. The statement also claimed that the governor’s office set up a ‘series of checks’ to make sure there were no conflicts in reporting arrangements.

“Yet somebody should have been asking tough questions, and nobody did. That is the tragedy of this case.”