WYOMING CHAPTER ARMA
Chapter Meeting
January 8, 2008 11:30 a.m.
Wyoming State Archives, 2301 Central Ave - Cheyenne, WY

Please Note: These minutes are abridged.

Members Present: Tony Adams, Kristy Anderson, Mary Bausserman, Mark Browne, Ramona Christensen, Donna Crock, Wendy Kinkade, Debbie Leonard, Pat Newbern, Connie Rothwell, Valerie Roybal, Barb Thomasee, Tim Tyler, Rich Wilson

Guests: Betsy Craig, Garri Gemelli, Jennifer Mickle, Michelle Stewart

Speakers: Pat Anderson, Joanne Struebing

Topic: “Wyoming Board of Parole and their movement of Hard Copy to Electronic Records”

Members and guests met at the Wyoming State Archives Multi-Purpose Room (Barrett Building) located at 2301 Central Ave, in Cheyenne where everyone enjoyed a brief visit and a catered lunch from Silver Mine Subs. Donna Crock, President introduced herself, welcomed everyone for today’s meeting and asked for everyone to please introduce themselves and their employment. Donna then reminded everyone of the upcoming March Seminar and Silent Auction, March 10th. Donna then introduced Tim Tyler, who welcomed our newest WY ARMA members, Mark Browne and Connie Rothwell, and presented them with their new member packets. Donna then introduced Pat Anderson, our speaker today and Director for the Board of Parole. Pat Anderson began his talk with a brief history of the Wyoming Board of Parole. Beginning in the 1970’s, the Wyoming Board of Parole comprised of 3 members (volunteer) and small office staff providing required background information for the Board. In the 1980’s the Board became part of the Department of Corrections, and then in 2003, the Board of Parole became a separate State Agency. The current Parole Board consists of 7 citizen members (part-time) who serve a six-year term with no more than 4 of the same political party, and 7 office staff. Function of the Board of Parole is to: make decisions regarding parole grants and revocations, commutation recommendations to the Governor, removal of and restoration of good time credits and restoration of first time, non-violent felons’ voting rights. Additionally, the Board provides notification to certified victims of parole hearings and other related matters. There are approximately 1000 eligible each year in the State of Wyoming for Parole, with about 800 Parole hearings. 65% or about 500 of those 800 are granted. Unfortunately about 120 come back to the board through re-incarceration, with some re-paroled. Pat went on to describe the sentencing procedure and how the minimum and maximum sentencing determines the approximate dates of Parole eligibility. Life commutations may also be granted by the Governor, however this is a very rare occurrence in our state to date. Because the state of Oklahoma currently maintains about 400 inmates for the State of Wyoming, our Parole Board is also required to not just travel around the state to the various penal institutions, but also to Oklahoma for inmate Parole meetings. There are approximately 9 meetings average per year. The volunteer Parole Board do receive compensation (per state statute) for their travel, time and expenses similar to our state Legislature. Interesting statistics relate that Wyoming’s success rate of Parolee’s is approximately 70%. Colorado went to a mandatory parole with only a 20% success rate. Pat Anderson then introduced Joanne Struebing, the Parole Board Executive Assistant and coordinator of their efforts to move from paper records to electronic records. The need to go electronic literally became very real due to Pat Anderson’s back injury while hand carrying the normally large and heavy documents to a parole hearing. Jo provided everyone with an office work procedure and file maintenance handout. She then explained the types of folders their office maintains and what the Base folder hold for each inmate. The Base folder can be up to or even more than 1,000 pages. The software and program they use is Acrobat. All paper documents are scanned; those digital images are then sorted and placed per folder. The result: Instead of sending thousands of pages to the Parole Board before each Parole Board meeting, the Parole Board office staff are now able to send a password protected disk (s) to each of the Parole Board. Jo explained all paper documents remain as the Department’s permanent records. This system is just barely a year old, and Jo explained it has been quite a journey, but one everyone in their agency agrees has been a success and continues to provide savings in; Time, Staff, Postage, Fax transmittals, and all other related functions previously experienced. Before closing the meeting a 50/50 drawing was held, with Rich Wilson winning. Rich once again chose to return his 50% to the Chapter towards our Scholarship fund.

Today’s presentation was very interesting and well valued by all in attendance. Meeting was adjourned at 1:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by,
Pat Newbern Vice President