The Wisconsin Department of Corrections is making progress on its new computer database and expects it to be fully functional in the first quarter of 2008.

The new database will replace six current systems the DOC uses to keep track of prisoners. These include systems to manage adult institutions, juvenile systems, community corrections, a sex offender website and two separate systems to manage finances.

"In order to get a full picture of an offender who might have been around our entire system, you'd have to look across all half-dozen databases in order to get that picture," said Earl Fischer, department of management services administrator for the DOC. "The objective of the new system is to bring all aspects of offender management together and onto a single system on a single database."

Fischer added some of the old databases are built on technologies that are no longer supported.

"It's my understanding that this new computer system will integrate corrections, not only the institutions, but allow corrections to speak with other agencies more efficiently," state Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said.

The Wisconsin Legislature approved the project in 2001, and officials began looking for a contractor for the project in 2004. In May 2005, Marquis Software of Tallahassee, Fla., was awarded the contract. Work on the new system began that same month. Originally, the system was set to be completed by June 2005.

"When the actual work began we found that the scope was larger than we had originally anticipated and some of the gaps between what the software did and what we needed to have done was greater than we expected," Fischer said.

Suder said the delay is giving the DOC time to make sure the system works properly.

"Although many of us are disappointed in the delay, I think we need to work together to make sure the department gets it right," Suder said. "We don't need another fiasco like we've seen in other agencies, like the [University of Wisconsin] for instance."

Suder alluded to when the UW System spent $26 million on a records computer system but ended up scrapping the entire project because it didn't function.

"Taxpayers will never get that money back," Suder said. "We don't want that to happen with the Department of Corrections."

In 2008, the adult corrections system will begin using the new database. The community corrections department of the DOC will begin using it the following year and the juvenile corrections department will begin the year after that.

"What we are doing in this first phase is running adult institutions or prisons with the new system," Fischer said. "It will have all of the data pulled from all of the old systems into it, but we'll continue running the old systems in parallel."

Fischer said the delay in completion of the project is not affecting current DOC operations. The DOC will continue to use the current systems until the new system is fully operational.