MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE

2016 Regular Session

To: Corrections

By: Representative Currie

House Bill 197

AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 47-5-35, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO REVISE THE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF PEER'S CORRECTIONAL AUDITOR; TO REQUIRE FACILITIES HOLDING STATE OFFENDERS TO COOPERATE WITH THE AUDITOR WHEN HE OR SHE NEEDS ACCESS TO ANY PERSON OR ANY INFORMATION; TO PROVIDE THAT IF COOPERATION IS NOT GRANTED BY REPRESENTATIVES OF SUCH FACILITIES, THEN CERTAIN LEGAL ACTION MAY BE TAKEN; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

     BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

     SECTION 1.  Section 47-5-35, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

     47-5-35.  (1)  The Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) shall appoint an auditor to audit the correctional system, and provide sufficient office facilities in the Jackson office, who shall be a certified public accountant, a certified fraud examiner,  or an experienced accountant, with experience appropriate to the responsibilities of the position. * * *whose duty shall be to audit all accounts of the state correctional system for the purpose of reporting to the Legislative Budget Office.  He shall report whether supplies and products bought and sold are handled in accordance with law and when bought on samples and specifications whether they measure up to such samples and specifications when the goods are received.  The auditor shall report on the letting of bids and shall make a determination that all bids are advertised and let in accordance with law and shall render a report on same.  The auditor shall be responsible to make a periodic inventory on all goods, machinery, livestock, farm produce or any other property of the correctional system and make a report thereon to the Legislative Budget Office on such terms and conditions and as often as required by the committee.  The salaries and expenses of such auditor or his employees shall be paid from funds appropriated for support of the Legislature or its committees.

(2)  The powers and duties of the auditor shall include:

(a)  Conducting audits and reviews of any inmate or financial information of the Department of Corrections and its institutions, or any regional correctional facility, county jail or private prison facility housing inmates committed to the custody of the department, community work center, restitution center, or any community corrections activity or function, as required by the Legislative Budget Office, the Chairs of the House and Senate Corrections Committees or the PEER Committee Executive Director;

(b)  Assisting the PEER Committee staff in carrying out any responsibility it has respecting corrections programs provided for in Section 27-103-159;

(c)  Auditing or reviewing purchases, personal services contracts, inventories, staffing, security and any other management or operational practices of the Department of Corrections, its institutions and its community corrections functions as deemed necessary by the Chairs of the House and Senate Corrections Committees individually, the Legislative Budget Office, or the Executive Director of the Legislative PEER Committee and recommending changes in accordance with either Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) standards, industry best practices, any other management or evaluation standards that the auditor or the PEER Executive Director considers appropriate;

(d)  Reviewing any activities of the Parole Board as directed by the House and Senate Corrections Chairmen, the Executive Director of the Legislative PEER Committee or the Legislative Budget Office;

(e)  Preparing any reports or requests necessary to answer concerns raised by any member of the Legislature regarding the Mississippi Department of Corrections or any inmates under its custody.  Such legislative assistance shall be prepared, filed and distributed in accordance with the rules of the PEER Committee; and

(f)  Doing all things necessary and proper to carry out the activities described in paragraphs (a) through (e) of this subsection.

(3)  Such auditor shall make, * * *at least, a * * *monthly periodic-report to the Legislative Budget Office and the * * * ChairmanChairmen of the Corrections Committees of the Senate and the * * *Chairman of the Penitentiary Committee in the House of Representatives.  Such reports shall contain a summary of all work conducted regarding paragraphs (a) through (d) of this subsection.

 * * *The auditor shall attend all the meetings of the board and shall be notified by the board of all meetings or specially called meetings.  The Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review shall provide the auditor with a secretary and such personnel as it deems necessary.

(4)  The Department of Corrections, regional correctional authorities, local jail administrators and sheriffs, and all private prisons holding inmates committed to the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections shall cooperate with the auditor and provide access to any persons, including inmates, records, files, documents, computer drives or other media containing information related to the operations of such facilities.  Further, the department shall provide the auditor with real-time, remote, read-only access to any and all computer databases that the department maintains.  Such access shall ensure that the auditor may download data for use in any analysis the auditor deems necessary and useful.  It is the policy of the Legislature that all information contained or maintained by such entities shall be subject to review by the auditor at such times, as the auditor deems appropriate.  All files of the auditor are subject to the rules of the PEER Committee and may only be used or disclosed in accordance with those rules.

(5)  If the representatives of the Department of Corrections or any other officer, employee, or entity set out in subsection (4) of this section fails to provide either access to persons or information as requested, the auditor may seek the assistance of the PEER Committee through the issuance of subpoenas or subpoenas duces tecum for the procurement of testimony or the production of documents.  In any instance where the representatives of the Department of Corrections or any other officer, employee, or entity set out in subsection (4) of this section fails to comply with a subpoena, the PEER Committee, through a committee resolution, may seek the assistance of the Attorney General in enforcing such subpoenas through the chancery courts of the state.  Any public officer or employee, or any employee of a private correctional facility who fails to comply with a subpoena may be brought before the chancery court to show cause why such person should not be found in contempt of the committee.  After notice and hearing, the court shall have the power to find a recalcitrant witness to be in contempt of the committee and shall have the power to confine such person to the county jail until such person agrees to comply with the subpoena, thereby purging the contempt.

     SECTION 2.  This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2016.

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