The Starke County Community Corrections, in partnership with the Starke County Probation Department and the Starke County Sheriff’s Office, are working to submit a grant request for programs and funding.
Community Corrections Director Robert Hinojosa said this is the ninth year of requesting funding for community corrections and the second year for jail treatment programs and pretrial funding.
Pretial Officer Chuck Phillips said there are no increases in funding for his salary and benefits of $63,000. User fees would be used to cover any increases should they be necessary.
Sheriff Bill Dulin said his portion of the grant application would include funding for the Intensive Outpatient Program facilitated by Porter-Starke Services.
“Our portion of the grant is the IOP programs – the in-custody substance abuse programs,” said Sheriff Dulin. “I’ll give you some round numbers. In the nine months that we’ve had, I believe we’ve had 126 inmates have gone through and nine have been re-arrested. The recidivism rate is right around 15 percent while the national average is 67 percent. This is a huge component of what we do and what we’re trying to do with the heroin problem and the methamphetamine problem. It also addresses our GED program and our Alcoholic Anonymous program.”
The Starke County Sheriff’s Office is asking for $75,763 which is the same amount requested as last year.
Hinojosa said the community corrections program has grown in Starke County. However, they are asking for the same amount for operating costs which is $324,401.
“We are going to continue to target high risk offenders,” commented Hinojosa. “We won’t spend a lot of resources with low risk offenders. Those are people who have pretty much lived a good life and got into trouble. If you kind of leave them alone, they’ll do okay. So you focus on high risk offenders and that’s one of the things that the DOC really liked about our proposal which is why we’ve received funding for years.”
The total amount of funding requested is $463,064.
Hinojosa mentioned that the state recognizes several important factors in that all three entities are working together to reduce redundancy in programs and collaborating for efficiency.
The commissioners voted unanimously to sign a letter of support that will go along with the application. The application will be electronically filed at the end of the month and notification of funds will be announced in March or April. The funds will be available July 1.
