Nebraska State Senator John McCollister has introduced a bill that would require the Department of Corrections to issue monthly reports.
Those reports would go to the Appropriations and Judiciary Committees of the Legislature, the Inspector General for Corrections, and the Office of the Public Counsel.
The report would include: The number of committed offenders, at or past their parole eligibility dates, who have not received appropriate programming; the number and type of vacant positions for behavioral health staff, employed by or under contract with the department, both for the entire department and for each correctional facility; and the number of inmates who have achieved community-custody status, but are still not in a community-custody facility.
McCollister says while lawmakers can already request that information from the Department of Corrections on a regulary basis, requiring it by law would provide more transparency into what is happening inside the Department.
A legislative committee took no immediate action on the bill.
