A resolution approving a proposed Agreement between the City and County of Denver and B.I. Incorporated for electronic offender monitoring, products and services. Approves a contract with B.I. Incorporated for $1,500,000 and through 1-31-25 to provide electronic monitoring equipment and support for pretrial and in-home detention services to effectively monitor court ordered conditions of release, citywide (SAFTY-202161198).The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 2-22-22. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 1-19-22.
11 eyes council resolution 20 2-0080 has been adopted. Council Member Katzmann, will you please put Council Resolution 45 on the floor for adoption? I'm a the council resolution 20 2-004 or five be adopted. Thank you. It has been a year and we've got the second by a council member. Herndon comments or questions by members of Council on Council Resolution 45. Council Member State Abarca. Yes. Thank you. This is a contract. With a company listed as VII. If you all recall from our conversations when we were divesting from private prison operators. It was it came up. That buy was also a go company. And so I think we've really beat this horse to death with the community corrections department and our safety department. And when we say divest, I think we should truly divest. And we've had several years to line up with different contracts, a different mechanism for monitoring, which we know is out there. And so I'm frustrated that it's back in front of us, given that we've stated. Clearly our issues with this company. And so I want to go on record as a no. For this geo. Contract. All right. Thank you, Councilmember CdeBaca and Councilmember Cashman. I had that you had also called this out and wanted to see if you had any comments or questions before I go to Councilmember Hines. Yeah, I do. Thank you, Madam President. And I believe Greg Morrow is in the meeting this evening. I have a couple of questions for Greg. All right. Wonderful. We'll have our producers bring Greg into the panelists here. We'll just give them a moment. And if they're looking, it's Greg Morrow. Right. There we go. Thank you for joining us, Greg. Councilman Cashman, go ahead. Yeah, thank you, Greg. Let's let's start with that part of it that council member said about I was talking about why are why are we proposing contracting with an offshoot of GEO. Good evening, Councilman, and thanks for that question. Let me first round. Up, Greg, before you, Delavan, could you introduce yourself for the public record, please? Sure. Thank you, Madam President. Craig Monroe, director of Community Corrections for the Department of Safety. So let me. First answer the councilman's question with process. So we went through a competitive open bid process to identify potential offerors or proposers to provide electronic monitoring service to the city back in the fall of 21. Through that process, which was robust. There was subject matter experts that consisted of a panel to look at the technical aspects of any vendor proposal. There was the ability to provide the infrastructure and support for the proposal. Considered pricing was a component as well as the different types of technologies themselves. And ultimately, the panel produced recommendations to move forward with multiple vendors, we believe from the Department of Safety standpoint that it's the combination of these vendors that gives us all the equipment needs and the backup in order to run an effective electronic monitoring program. I guess I'll pause there to see if there's a follow up question, Councilman. Well, I guess there's a follow up to that, Greg. Would would be are you saying that there's no other vendor that could fulfill a particular technology that that was would be is able to fulfill? There will be a second bender coming through. It's trailing this contract. Unfortunately, we're one unable through just logistics to bring both of them to you tonight. The belief that the department has is that it's the combination of vendors that gives us the greatest operational perspective to perform these services, specifically to the equipment that has their G.P.S. device has some features, both in terms of the comfort and fit for the consumer, as well as some features that help us detect a tamper that make it a more attractive device. Similarly, the technology we use for our home confinement population allows GPS technology to tell us for that will tell us where the base shooter is, as well as provide messaging through a display on the home device to to the participants so we can communicate regularly if needed. Those are unique features to the bike. And so in part that's why we are advancing the notion that we need both by and the second vendor, which we'll be bringing forward in a couple of weeks. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you for that. A couple of technical parts and we exchanged emails over the weekend, so I'd like to get your answers on a couple of things, Greg. Are we using electronic monitored monitoring for people being sued for nonpayment of fines? Councilman. The answer is no. I do. I believe the authority in the municipal code authorizes that. But in my 25 years, I have never seen a case ordered to electronic monitoring for nonpayment of fees. Okay. You know, another area that kind of stuck with me is why are we monitoring people who haven't yet been convicted of crimes? You know, pretrial individuals. Can you address that? Yeah. Thanks for the question, Councilman. And let me talk discuss the two populations that are generally under electronic monitoring supervision. The first is a pretrial population, which you mentioned, and individuals as a condition of bond or a condition of their release. The court has deemed them to pose either a safety danger to the community or a flight risk and wants extra supervision conditions on them while they're in the community. The program does not charge pretrial defendants a fee for being on electronic monitoring. That was a policy decision enacted back in 2018. So that is just part of the Department of Safety General fund appropriation to pay for those services. It's typically reserved for individuals, again, that pose a high risk to fail. Typically, their offenses are fall under the victim rights amendment. We have a lot of individuals charged with a domestic violence offense, and we use technology to create boundaries or exclusion zones to keep that person from going into the protected parties place of residence or place of employment so we can monitor exclusion zones through the GPS technology. Additionally, we have people on electronic monitoring technologies to help them fight addiction and remain sober. So there's alcohol testing that's available that we can perform through electronic means. And again, there's no charge for that as well. And then the other group for convicted individuals is in lieu of a jail sentence. A judge can sentence somebody directly to the electronic monitoring program where they will serve X number of days on home confinement. It's that program that we do charge a nominal fee for. It's $13 a day, although there is the ability for the Corps to reduce or wave fees. And the program has a policy by which we can reduce fees for financial hardship. Okay. Thank you for that. Greg, up for just a second. I want to go back to that first question on regarding GEO, the connection with GEO. You mentioned that a second firm was going to be coming on shortly and now is that for the same product? In other words, if we were to turn this down tonight. Where? Where it is. What does that do? So the second firm offer offers similar technology, different devices, but similar technology. We believe and the panel advanced recommendations that the buy equipment was preferred. If the council were to not approve this contract, we would have. A significant transition to undergo to transition over 700 individuals on electronic monitoring because by is our current vendor to a new vendor with these different types of equipment. The other piece I'll just underscore the buy equipment that I mentioned. They're GPS device and their RF based unit, we believe. Are better pieces of equipment to fulfill our mission, to enforce the court orders and provide for public safety. We just believe that there are functions within those two devices that make it the better equipment at this time. We like the ability and flexibility to have different vendors under contract. So as technology changes and increases, we can be more mobile and flexible and pivot to a different piece of technology if it becomes available. But today we believe that the BI equipment is a better choice for our program. All right. Thank you, Greg. And thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Cashman. And we're going to go to Councilmember Hines. I thank you. Council President Mr. Mauro. I also have concerns about this contract as as you and I have discussed, you know, numerous times about private for profit prison contractors. You mentioned that there was a committee that considered and ultimately recommended this vendor, the committee, take into account the council's vote in the past to end relationship and Denver's relationship with private for profit prison contractors. Councilman Hines No, the committee was not tasked with that. They were tasked with looking at the proposals based upon pricing, technical expertize, the ability to provide inventory, the product. And it was comprised of subject matter experts in other counties across the state that do this work. So the level of understanding of the equipment and nuances was important. The other thing that I would mention is this agreement is not for direct services, unlike conversations that have taken place in the past regarding community corrections programs. We're just leasing the equipment from the vendor by they manufacture this equipment and they produce it and we're leasing it. It is city staff under the Department of Safety that monitor individuals under electronic monitoring 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And it's city staff that interacts with the clients, sets policies to support them, sets policies to return them to the court if there are violations. So the vendor has no contact with the population under electronic monitoring. Okay. The other vendor. I think I understand why you're not mentioning the vendor's name. Because it hasn't come before council. But I would ask, is it also a private, for profit prison contractor? Councilman Hines. I believe they are for profit. They are not in the private prison industry. Phil, thank you. So I also want to talk about, I mean, part of the impetus behind my vote, at least to end relationships is, of course, if it can go because of their their disproportionate impact on communities of color. I, I also recognize Councilmember Cashman shared some of your conversation over the weekend with colleagues. And and I recognize some of your comments that you just made in the last couple of minutes about the part of the population that would get these electronic monitoring as domestic violence offenses or victim rights cases. Do you have a sense for the the Denver Denver's population of domestic violence offenses for victim rights cases? Are those also predominantly communities of color? Councilman, thanks for the question. I do not have data to answer that question. It's certainly something we could follow up with you after after tonight's meeting to see what we can produce. I guess the question I'm trying to answer is, are we saying let's let are we considering communities of color and wanting to vote no? But then we would also, by voting no, would then have fewer ways to to protect our victim rights folks who might be communities of color. So I don't want us to, you know, hurt communities of color by trying to say communities of color, I guess, is what I'm what I'm getting at. Okay. I think that's that's all I have. Thank you. Council president. And. Q Councilmember Hines, Councilmember Ortega. Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Morrow, I have a couple of questions for you as well. Okay. Excuse me. And this is more related to the vector as opposed to directly related to the. This exact contract. What can you tell me? Excuse me. If. If we have replaced the number of beds that were lost when we voted down those contracts, what was it been a year and a half, almost two years ago, maybe longer. It's been well beyond two years. Exactly how many beds did we lose as a result of facilities shutting down from? After Council's action. Councilwoman Ortega. So if we look back at 2019, the summer of 2019, Denver had and its community corrections program capacity ten facilities and you know, right around 750 available beds for placement today, mostly because of the decision to terminate contracts with GEO for residential services and for core Civic for residential services. We set up five facilities and, you know, just right around 360 beds. So we lost roughly half of our capacity. There's an additional 40 beds that's unrelated to those two vendors and the issue associated with them that came off line. But essentially, we're half the size we used to be and we've had a tremendous struggle to replace those beds. And that's even after purchasing one of the facilities that was owned by one of these vendors, correct? That's correct. And how many? Number one, how much did we paid for that building? I believe the price was 1.2 or 1.3 million, and that does not include a significant amount of infrastructure costs that are going into the renovations and then the ongoing operational costs that it will take to have it run as a city program along with the community partner. So it's actually costing us more than it was. Being run privately. Councilwoman. I know it's. I've read it. We're talking about the women's facility. Right. This is to you all? That's correct. It's a project elevated to the hall in councilwoman. Yes, it is. It's absolutely costing us from the purchase price to the renovations to the ongoing operational costs, additional dollars, because prior to that, we would just take the money received from the state reimbursement and pass that through to the vendor. And there was no general fund commitment to those dollars. And just to underscore a point I made earlier, those are for residential services here. We're talking about equipment that specific operators manufacture. I don't think the city can ever go into the business of manufacturing electronic monitoring devices. Yeah, I get that. I want to hone in on the divestment piece of of this whole big picture conversation, because the reality is that action that was taken did not result in a better situation for the people we're trying to serve that were coming through. And the benefit of having the correction beds available is they have assisted people in re acclimating back into our communities and by not having them it means there are fewer beds and more people are on a wait list. So that's my next question. How many people are on a waitlist right now awaiting these correction beds that we shut down? Councilman Ortega. As you know, the wait lists ebb and flow. But we were we are currently well over 100. I think it's closer to 125 individuals who remain in the Department of Corrections who have been accepted by the Community Corrections Board. And if we had capacity could come into into the community. We also have, on any given day, 20 to 30 individuals sitting in our jail awaiting placement as well. And we've been working really hard to move the the jail population into beds. But that what that does is just create a longer wait time for the DACA population. So have we taken any steps to purchase any additional building so that we can have more beds? And would that rely on, again, a private operator running those facilities, any additional facility? Councilmember Vega. Yes. There have been discussions between real estate and private entities about the acquisition of properties to run residential services. In fact, we've reported that we were unsuccessful in the ability to secure a transaction to bring to council with force epic. So Real Estate is working with us to actively find another site because we will complete the termination of Core Civic in June of 23 and we'll take 90 more beds offline that we do not have a hard capacity to replace them once. Okay. I think this is an important part of the conversation so that my colleagues understand the impact that we had in terms of now not being able to serve people in our community in the same way we were able to when we had those available beds. And given the fact that we're, you know, down by 360 beds, I think is what you said, that that's a huge impact on how many people we were serving before, that we're now not able to and we'll have 90 more beds taken off that list that people will be available to. Is the Community Correction Board continuing to approve people even though we have fewer beds and is that waitlist just continuing to grow? Councilwoman The current answer is yes and but leaves behind that is the board exists to determine who's appropriate for community placement and then expect the Department of Safety in this example to find the capacity to serve them. Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Ortega. Next up, we have Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. Greg, you told me earlier today that there were additional proposers. How many proposers were there for this? For the scope of work. Councilman Glenn I believe it was seven respond that applied to the RFP and there were recommendations to move three forward. We have processed a very small contract that did not need council for one minor piece of equipment. And then the other two were tonight's action and one coming forward in two weeks. Okay. That's what I was getting at because I thought you had said there were seven earlier. And and what I wanted to make clearly understood is that the three that are moving forward were among those seven. So there weren't seven proposals for this particular scope. But the selection committee essentially carved out different scopes and said, buy is good for this one. A What are the other ones called? A AMS is good for the alcohol monitoring. And then the track to track group is a little more developmental, by the way. And that's the one that's under the threshold. Become a council, correct? Councilman Flynn, you are correct about the third group. As far as the work of the committee, I want to be careful not to violate any purchasing process. The committee recommended how to move forward and there were definitely rankings over which piece of equipment was better served for certain populations. I don't want to misstate that aims. The vendor doesn't have similar technologies, these technologies, and we very well might use them if that contracts approved for us as well. I'll just take that if I if I can, I'll just take a moment to share with the whole council. But I don't bring this recommendation forward lightly. We clearly all remember where we were in July of 19 and what's transpired over the last two years. It certainly would have been easier to not make this recommendation tonight, but I can't do that. I have to do what I believe is in the best interest for the Department of Safety to run this program and to advance a vendor that can meet our needs. So that's why we're here. It's certainly not to put this back in the council's lap or so to say. It's really because I have a responsibility to advance operationally what's best for community corrections and the Department of Safety. I appreciate that. I think then bottom line, I'm wondering, of the seven bidders, do you know, were all of them for profit or any of them nonprofit corporations? My friend. I don't recall that I. There's I believe they're all for profit. I know of no non profit manufacturer. That was that was my next question. That was my next question. Greg, do you know if there actually is a nonprofit corporation that provides these mechanisms in the service? Yeah, that's my point. I'm not aware of that. And again, if I would just reiterate to folks that it's the city of Denver through community productions that provide all the services we're running, seeing the equipment. Yeah. Right. That's why my energy equivalent, in other words, it would not be it would not be an easy matter to give this contract for this equipment to a nonprofit corporation, because we don't know of any and certainly not bid on this, correct? That's correct. And they very well could use the equipment if we did it to a non participant existed. All right. Thank you. That's all. Madam President. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Flynn. Councilmember Sawyer. Thanks, Madam President, and thanks, Greg, for being here. My question I want to kind of turn back to the use of this technology. So you mentioned earlier that the use of this technology is generally used for domestic violence cases. Is that correct? Councilmember Sawyer. That's a large percentage of offenses that is used for. Yes, that's correct. Okay, great. Thank you for clarifying. And I'm not sure if you have the answer to this question. I know there are a couple of Department of Safety employees that are in the attendees list, so one of them might want to raise their hand. I'm just curious, between 2019 say since that's the time period that we're talking about our original vote and for a different topic. And now do you know like how many more users or are there more users? I guess I'm asking about the trend in domestic violence over the last couple of years. Council members. Sorry, I certainly wouldn't be able to answer that. So I'll pause to see if there's another Department of Safety representative who might. That would be great. Thank you. If there is someone from DC here that just raise your hand in the. Attendees to jump on. And Greg, you may be able to answer my follow up question to that, to that, which is if these offenders, the domestic violence offenders, were not monitored via this technology and whether it's this company or another company, what would what would happen to them? Would they be released into the world or would they be sitting more likely sitting in jail, waiting for their trial? Or what does that look like? That's member Sawyer. Yes, there's several possibilities that, you know, that would be individualized for sure. But certainly the use of electronic monitoring provides a judge a greater degree of comfort to follow the statute around the setting of least restrictive conditions and to minimize pretrial incarceration. So absent the ability to have electronic monitoring services, particularly GPS devices, I think one could logically conclude that there'd be more people in jail. The other piece is it's a tool, right? It's not a failsafe, but it's a tool to to help victims of domestic violence or other serious crimes be able to feel comfort that we're monitoring 24 seven and, you know, notifying both law enforcement and the victim if that defendant or perpetrator enters either an exclusionary zone bordering the victim's home or their place of residence. Okay. Great. Thank you, Greg. I really appreciate that. I'm just looking to see if any one from the Department of Safety is. We didn't get anybody. There were many hands raised. That's that's fine. Appreciate it. And Councilmember, if I could just jump in, I did receive a text from at least from the government affairs manager. They're going to work on that data and follow up with council on that. That would be great. I really appreciate it. It's my understanding that the incidence of domestic violence has gone up considerably in our city, particularly in this COVID time period, for lack of a better description. But I was just hoping someone could give me some more hard numbers than that. But I appreciate that. Thanks so much. Thanks, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Sawyer. Councilmember each. Thank you. Council President I'm just wondering if I appreciate the questions my colleagues have asked about consequences and tradeoffs. I wanted to understand better the timeline situation. So Greg Buy is an existing contractor. When is the expiration of their current contract and what would be the consequence of a decision not to proceed with this today in terms of continuity? So you mentioned before that we have 700 some users now. And so you've mentioned to Councilman Sawyer that some people might not be able to be in a release situation if they didn't have the technology. So but I don't think I picked up the timeline. A council member concedes the timeline is expired. Essentially we are now at the end of the BI contract. I understand that's not the answer anybody wants to convey or certainly appreciate. We started this process early in the fall and for a number of reasons could not get a calendar till now. But the by the current my contract would expire today. Okay. No further questions. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Canete, Councilmember Hines. I thank you. Council President. Just a comment. Mr. Mauro, thank you for your honest answers. I have been been on record in the past of being frustrated with having to vote on safety contracts. And we as a body have voted down contracts that have already expired. And we've been asked to vote on on contracts that that have expired. You know, and we're trying to pay people in arrears. And I was hoping that that safety would would be a little more proactive. And so I was kind of on the fence on, you know, supporting a private for profit prison contractor because of the technology and protecting victims of domestic violence. But we have another vendor, if inferior, still another vendor. And and we can't. The two Councilmember Sawyer's comments previously. Our job is to is to vote on contracts and keep some sort of financial accountability with the administration in the executive branch. And if we have agencies that continue to hamstring us in our voting, it's really frustrating and and and does not. Properly allow us to do the checks and balances that our founders asked of us to do with the three different branches of government. So I will be honored tonight. Thank you, Consul President. Thank you. Councilmember Hines and I want I have one question for Greg. When you said that there are 700 individuals currently that we're monitoring and we are leasing this equipment, if this contract is not approved tonight, Greg, what happens to those 700 individuals? Madam President, let me. And also the 700 was an approximate I'm looking at the 2021 ADP of a 623. I don't have the current count today, but it's it's going to be in the general ballpark of that. It depends what they're being electronically monitored for. Right. We have individuals as a condition of bond on area restriction. And so we'd have to work with the courts around that. We have people on monitored sobriety. We'd have to work with the courts on what to do there. And we have people in home confinement. So if the contract is is not approved, I don't see any way to move forward. They would have to work to continue the services. But by until we could complete an exchange, we don't have another vendor under contract. We don't have all the equipment we need. So at a minimum, we would have to have a period of time to complete a safe transition. Okay. I appreciate that, Greg. And I'll go ahead and wrap up with my my comment. You know, at the end of the day, I would rather folks be out of jail and be utilizing electronic monitoring to make sure that they are able to fulfill the terms of their bail, their treatment, etc., and move on with their lives , hopefully in a positive way. This is for the equipment. It's not for the services. And so with that being said, not to negatively affect possibly hundreds of individuals lives right now who are trying to get to a better place. I will be in favor of this tonight. Madam Secretary, roll call on council resolution 45, please. CdeBaca Nope. Claire I. Win. I. Herndon. I. HINES No. Cashman. I can. I Ortega. I. Sandoval. We have a thumbs up from Councilmember Sandoval. Her audio isn't working right now. Council Secretary. Thank you. Sawyer. I. Torres? No. Black I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. Three nays. Ten Eyes. Ten Eyes. Council Resolution 20 2-0045 has been adopted. That concludes the items to be called out this evening. All bills for introduction are ordered published. Council members remember this is a consent or block vote and you will need to vote I. Otherwise, this is your last chance to call out an item for a separate vote. Councilman Cashman, would you please put the resolutions for adoption and the bills on final consideration for final passage on the floor? I move that resolutions be adopted and bills on final consideration be placed upon final consideration and do pass in a block for the following items. All Series 2020 20042004 349. 74. 76. 7784. 86, 87, 88, 35, seven, 50 and ten, 79. Thank you. It's been moved. And we've got the second by Councilman Herndon. Madam Secretary, welcome back. I see tobacco, I. Clark. Right. Flynn. I. Herndon. I. Hines. I. Cashman. I can eat. I. Ortega. I. Denver. I. Sawyer. I. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. 13 eyes. 13 eyes. The resolutions have been adopted and the bills have been placed upon final consideration and do pass. Council will not take a recess this evening. Our pre adjournment announcement on Tuesday, February 22nd. Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 22, Dash 0093, reestablishing the Board of Adjustment and Updating Board Requirements and procedures on