Senator Cleary, the bill sponsor, told the Senate the amendment to Senate Bill 20‑15 adjusts the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget to add staff, expand bed capacity and fund deferred maintenance. The Senate adopted the amendment and later passed the bill on final passage by a 46‑0 vote with one senator absent.

The amendment adds full‑time equivalent positions and one‑time and ongoing funding to address overcrowding and facility needs, Cleary said. "We added 26 FTEs for the Heart River Correctional Center," he said, and described additional FTEs for the Missouri River Correctional Center, pretrial services and community corrections conversions.

Committee members said the package balances near‑term actions with longer‑term planning. The amendment includes one‑time general fund payments of $17,500,000 to counties and regional correctional centers that house state inmates, $13,700,000 for Roughrider Industries equipment and supplies, and $35,600,000 to complete the Heart River Correctional Center in Mandan. The bill also appropriates about $20,000,000 for facility planning and design for a proposed roughly 600‑bed facility at the Missouri River Correctional Center (MRCC) and sets aside $8,000,000 in State Infrastructure Funds (SIF) plus an unspecified general fund amount for an approximately 88‑bed temporary unit at MRCC.

Cleary said the committee included funding to bridge uncertain federal grants for victim services: "$7,000,000 is designed to give those organizations some certainty in their funding," he said. Other items in the amendment include $15,000,000 for deferred maintenance and extraordinary repairs, roughly $11,200,000 for software and technology consolidation, $1,500,000 for a Northwest regional reentry center, $750,000 for a James River Correctional Center facility study, and a rollback of about $1,500,000 in special funds derived from low‑yield supervision fee collections.

The amendment also rolls over approximately $102,000,000 in SIF to continue construction at the Heart River facility and requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide quarterly reports to the Legislative Management on those SIF dollars and project progress. Cleary said the package aims to pair immediate relief such as overflow housing with planning for longer‑term capacity and reentry services to reduce recidivism.

The Appropriations Committee adopted the amendment by a 16‑0 committee vote before the full Senate approved it, and the chamber later gave final passage to Senate Bill 20‑15 on a recorded vote of 46 ayes, 0 nays, 1 absent.