Members of the Marshall County Council were pleasantly surprised when a group of county professionals joined forces to collaborate on ways to reduce the population in the County Jail using grant funds.
Monday morning, Ward Byers the head of Community Corrections, Prosecutor Nelson Chipman, Sheriff Matt Hassel and Chief Probation Officer Jim Bendy approached the council with requests to apply for one large grant that would then be split into the four departments.
Byers said they are getting ready to apply for fiscal year 2020 grant from the Indiana Department of Corrections. He explained that he Community Correction grants go down state a one large grant even though each grant received from the state is its own entity. He continued, “The Prosecutor’s felony diversion is its own entity, jail treatment its own, probation is applying for the first time and it will be its own and Community Corrections is its own.”
Each department head told the council their plans for the grant money. Byers said he currently receives $304,300 in state grant funding he is increasing his request by $62,761.45 to hire another full-time case manager to help with the increase case load.” The new average on GPS monitoring is 106 individuals. He said, “That has exploded in the last 6 months of 2018.”
When Council member Penny Lukenbill asked about the increase Byers said, “What we are seeing is the true effects of House Bill 106 that was passed in 2014. It’s taken a little bit but we are seeing it now. Folks aren’t going to the Department of Corrections they are staying local so the county jails, probation, community corrections. But there are other programs in place such as Mr. Chipman’s felony diversion program. All of these community correction programs are really geared to do a couple of things. But the one thing that makes sense to the council is to divert people out of county jails.”
Prosecutor Nelson Chipman is seeking the same amount as last year, $59,300 for the felony diversion program. The current case load is 32 and some of those people are coming off the program. He said, “It’s performing the way it was intended.”
Sheriff Hassel discussed continued and additional programs being offered at the jail. The Moral Recognition Therapy is currently being offered and last week the Plymouth School Corporation GED counselor will be starting a GED program for the inmates and Grace College is going to offer a Restaurant Food Service Certification program for a national certification. He said they are also in discussions of beginning an inmate workers program for outside work and would like to hire a person to oversee the programs in the jail. The jail will increase their grant request from $39,000 to $79,500 to seek the full-time jail treatment counselor.
Jim Bendy from Probation is seeking $64,721 for pay and benefits for an additional intake officer and $65,321 to add another moderate to high risk probation officer. He said the house bill has, “put a burden on local county government entities and it’s finally trickled down to probation.”
The county council unanimously approved the grants which totaled over $650,000.
