[0:00] Any

[0:03] questions on that? >> Uh

[0:08] just a short thank you. I guess each time you brought it up a ton of moving

[0:13] pieces between the need uh found last was it December or it was before the

[0:21] beginning of the new year. We was the realization that those cases would be

[0:25] new buildings. uh took a lot of people um to get involved to make a

[0:30] determination on space and and everything else. Not only did they do

[0:35] that, but they're also looking at new programming. Um so, um everybody

[0:40] involved with the case and change programs. Um uh I would like to thank

[0:44] for the amount of effort that they put in. Um we had several meetings directly

[0:49] with the leadership of the schools. Um, and then the move itself, I mean, just

[0:54] to take all of those things, get it to a different location. Um, so obviously all

[0:58] of us will have to modify some of our paperwork, content addresses, and things

[1:02] like that for the new year um to make sure all those things go smoothly. But

[1:06] there's a ton of moving parts and I'd like to thank uh everybody that was

[1:10] involved in those small groups as well as the um uh the change um employees as

[1:17] well. They do an amazing job throughout the year um with creating these new

[1:22] programs to deter some of those youth from being involved in juvenile justice

[1:26] system. So

[1:30] » moving on discussion of the 2026 adult um and probation mental health grant

[1:36] awarders.

[1:39] » Sure. Um, so

[1:43] as I think everybody probably had heard, the budget for the pot of money that the

[1:48] DOC uses um to award things to community as well as anybody who got opened up

[1:56] under the 106 funding program was reduced statewide. It was

[2:02] reduced by about 10%. So um, we all had to wait to receive our awards to find

[2:07] out where we were going to fall in that. Um, we have spent some time looking at

[2:13] the overall awards because it is public knowledge. So, they do a list showing

[2:17] what happened with all the money at every county that had asked for it. Um,

[2:21] and just trying to give an idea of where I'll say that the department of freshman

[2:27] is notoriously known for not sharing information of how they make their

[2:31] decisions. So, if you ask them, you'll get a pinned answer that doesn't really

[2:34] tell you anything. um it'll include something about the funding formula and

[2:39] uh some other information about maybe program uh reports and things like that.

[2:45] So, kind of just taking a look at the numbers to see if we could discern on

[2:49] our own how the decisions were made. Um what one of the first things that

[2:54] becomes obvious is that they made a decision to cut a lot of the programs

[2:57] that received 106 funding or that had been added in in the last

[3:03] decade sometime. Um and those were um prosecutor diversion programs, jail

[3:09] treatment programs, pre-trial, and there were two AA programs that were uh

[3:14] basically cut to zero funding. After that, it looks like they took

[3:18] percentages off of problem solving courts, probation awards, and both types

[3:24] of community corrections awards. For the DOC, those are separated into community

[3:28] supervision and residential. So, um, for us, for the community supervision and

[3:33] the residential, we took about a 9% cut, which is, uh, more than some places,

[3:40] less than a lot of places. So, um, we cannot, um, be unhappy about that, I

[3:46] suppose. Um, there were some counties that were cut up to 30%. So, 9% doesn't

[3:51] seem as bad when you look at it that way. Um there were some counties smaller

[3:56] programs that did only community provision that had a 0% cut. Um I think

[4:01] about maybe 15 or so of those. So um just estimate I didn't count them. So

[4:08] in looking at that um we had to obviously do some rework for the budget.

[4:12] Again our hearing with county council was on Wednesday. So, we went up um kind

[4:18] of presented to them this same information and then asked for a little

[4:22] more assistance so that we would be able to do staff raises. Obviously, that's a

[4:26] question across the board for the county at this point of whether or not uh any

[4:30] kind of employees are going to be getting raises. So, it was only a

[4:33] presentation. Um the other thing that I also brought to their attention and help

[4:39] discuss is possibly taking some things back over. Um, specifically what I asked

[4:45] was for the IT budget. So in the committee corrections budget, we pay

[4:49] about $30,000 a year for software and servers. And

[4:54] I'm I'm not going to try to say because that that's not what it is. Uh it's

[5:00] things that we were not previously paying for until about a year a year and

[5:03] a half ago when for whatever reason um in the budgets they decided to switch

[5:08] that onto our responsibility. So, that's something I've asked them to possibly

[5:12] take back and do the bad thing to the IT budget out of some other county funding.

[5:18] Um, we will have to wait until I believe September to have answers on that. Uh,

[5:22] we did remind the council that our budgets to the Department of Corrections

[5:26] are due on September 1st, which I think is actually a few days before they are

[5:32] set to meet again to do the budget hearings. So, hopefully we will be

[5:36] provided some sort of information before that time. Sorry about

[5:47] » the probation grant. Uh we felt about the same percentage in cut. Um kind of

[5:55] surprised as you take a look at our grant process. That's one of the only

[6:01] other sections that when you take a look at how they fund pre-trial separate,

[6:08] prosecutor diversion and probation are separate. Um, so I was kind of surprised

[6:13] to see that, you know, we still got it, but at the same time, they did give us a

[6:18] percentage cut. Um they also um when allocating the money

[6:26] previously had allowed for several um budget plan items that they had taken

[6:31] away from us this time in 9%. So first they cut us about 10% then they said any

[6:37] funds that we give to you can only go to two things in the 100 series which for

[6:41] anybody that's budget that's just salary infringe. So, we did lose um some

[6:47] financial um help with testing uh because the officer uh Johan Scott who

[6:54] takes care of that grant usually uses as much as she can to help fund our our

[6:59] testing budget by using her funds directly for those on her case load

[7:05] test. As of previous years, we got about $9,000

[7:09] um in that we lost that. Um but um preparing for this uh budget cycle

[7:16] myself, Michelle and uh assistant chief Paul have been meeting since February. I

[7:22] mean we extensive amount of planning while we planned for our the possibility

[7:27] that our supplier tester at Gav Labs um was asking for a possible 10% increase.

[7:34] So we added that to our general budget. Um, and then, uh, Brian and Michelle

[7:39] were able to hold them over the barrel and get a second year freeze on our

[7:43] prices. Um, I don't know if we'll get that next year since we've gone two in a

[7:47] row, but we'll try. Um, so ultimately, we kind of had a zero sum game. We I

[7:54] added the money, so we had it there, and then we didn't get the money from VOC,

[7:58] so we should be fine um there. Um but also having it um limited to the 100

[8:05] series is new for us. Um usually we have some some ability to help with travel

[8:10] training in the drug testing. But other than that, yeah, uh I think both of us

[8:16] were spent about two days looking at every

[8:20] other county and every other brand entity what they got, what they didn't

[8:24] get. But I think both of us said, "Yeah, it's it's not funding for us, but we

[8:29] definitely

[8:35] Um, so obviously waiting on information from the council, but then also um

[8:39] knowing that our amended budgets are due by September 1st, the board doesn't meet

[8:44] again until September 12th. Do we believe we need a vote to allow the

[8:50] executive committee to approve the amended budgets before subitted on

[8:55] September

[9:01] My bad.

[9:04] I thought it was late. My bad.

[9:10] Sorry.

[9:15] Discussion. I'm sure there's a great deal in in the past that we've been able

[9:22] to do the pre-expensive.

[9:26] Um my two sense uh is that that I think is

[9:31] appropriate. >> Do we have is the question is do we have

[9:36] to have a motion or do we think they can just do it?

[9:40] » That's what I think just do it. We need to

[9:50] » I would agree. Our original our original grant request, our original budget

[9:55] finds, all of those had an approval over anything we do now ultimately would

[10:01] probably be less than what we requested. So I think we're operating under the

[10:07] authority of

[10:13] moving on question regarding mandatory community therapist work for all

[10:17] benefits. So, I wanted to bring this to the board

[10:22] because I think as part of the participation agreement that we have, it

[10:27] is listed in our rules. Um, but it is something that the staff's been kind of

[10:31] discussing a change on. And the reason for that is, and I was doing research on

[10:36] it, kind of looking back into um what does the most up-to-date research say on

[10:41] having community service work as part of community supervision? It is split.

[10:45] there you can find studies that say is helpful. It's part of community

[10:49] reberation things like that and then find others that say it's not helpful.

[10:52] There's no efficacy. Um, but I think what I was seeing when I looked it up

[10:58] kind of tracks along with what our staff has been feeling and that is

[11:02] it works when you do it in more of a road crew or work through where you take

[11:08] people out in a supervised fashion in a van and you have them do something

[11:13] specific or they go to a certain place and they do that work. Uh, which we do

[11:17] not have the ability nor the staff to supervise.

[11:21] um when they're going on their own and what we're basically doing is expecting

[11:26] the people at the community service work sites to be the supervision, it doesn't

[11:31] appear to be working that well. The problems that we've been seeing with it

[11:35] have been um either people going to their community service work site and

[11:39] not actually working, sitting in their cars, playing on their phones, vaping

[11:45] places they're not supposed to be vaping, including sometimes in the

[11:48] buildings. And what we find is that the um the folks that work at community

[11:54] service provision or community service work sites are very largehearted

[12:00] and kind people who don't want to cause conflict. And so when they have issues

[12:08] like this, they either don't know how to handle it, aren't handling it, or don't

[12:12] know how to report it, or wait until it's happened multiple times before they

[12:16] tell us that it's happening. And so what our discussion has been is basically are

[12:22] we in fact actually allowing criminal thinking and manipulation to continue to

[12:27] take place because we're sending folks out to places where they instead of

[12:31] working are having their family come and meet them and just hang out. Um and

[12:36] because we don't have the ability or the staff at the time to go and supervise by

[12:40] ourselves, we're not sure it's being done properly. What we're kind of

[12:45] proposing and I guess asking for the board's approval for is to remove the

[12:49] requirement of automatic and mandatory community service work for everyone in

[12:53] the program and use it instead for only those who are not employed like you will

[12:57] do community service work until you get employed. That way it's a lesser number

[13:01] for us to attempt to supervise and verify and talk to the site supervisors

[13:06] about or as distinction um if we need it in our as part of our graduate

[13:11] distinction process.

[13:15] I have to leave you in just a moment uh to get back to the trial but I will say

[13:20] I wholeheartedly support that the the research that I have seen is that it

[13:24] serves no rehabilitative purpose and what you're describing is happening I

[13:31] think it's entirely possible that it is a negative

[13:37] situation rather than something positive. So I I think that that change

[13:40] is totally supported as appropriate. I totally do not support it. I listen to

[13:48] what you said. If you want to avoid people committing a crime with bankrupt,

[13:55] a really easy way to do it is you basically what you're saying is you got

[14:01] people going out and acting like Julian. The whole idea is you're not supposed to

[14:04] act like Julian. So the way you do it is you don't you don't let them just don't

[14:07] make them do it. Work it good for your soul. There's a component to this

[14:11] program that goes beyond simply treating them letting them go to work. They

[14:18] should give back. So I think we should table it because I

[14:23] do believe the other part said, okay, these are good spirited people. They

[14:28] they don't have any right to put them in conflict. You have all those districts.

[14:32] We just should try to find out within the ambit of county government whether

[14:38] or not we have the ability to place these people to do things that are

[14:43] positive in the community that give back. Give you more of the context when

[14:49] you're talking about positive roads working on stuff.

[14:57] So my my personal suggestion is you table it. If indeed you have nothing

[15:03] that fits the effective thing that works,

[15:07] I guess. Okay. All right. But on the other hand, realistically,

[15:13] I I would never say no, you don't do community service just because you're

[15:18] showing up and sitting your car not doing what do you got? Use that as a

[15:22] test. might as well eliminate a lot of other stuff people might want to do

[15:25] here. >> I'm serious. I'm serious. It's like,

[15:28] yeah, they don't pay attention to him and they, you know, they punch each

[15:32] other and they screw around. So, that's not productive. Let's stop MRT. No, no,

[15:38] we need to see if we can find something to address. I think the difference for

[15:43] us there is that MRT for example, we have the ability to supervise and we

[15:47] don't have such problems because >> and I very much I very much do

[15:53] understand that and I'm not trying to be a total contrarian.

[15:58] » I am one but I'm not trying to be one right now. But before you can, I would

[16:05] like to find out if we have something in this camp that could be supervised in

[16:12] that fashion. Whether it's road crews, it's other things that need to be done,

[16:16] park people, stuff like that before you just throw it away.

[16:22] » Can I add something? That's respectfully.

[16:26] I stopped recommending community service for juveniles years and years and years

[16:31] ago because it is ineffective because in order for the juveniles to do it and to

[16:36] do it successfully, I would have to go and supervise and I simply don't have

[16:40] the time and I think that is what and that is what um

[16:45] » I very much understand. I very much understand that

[16:49] » and I and I've seen

[16:52] » but until but but until you disture yourself for instance that Brady Thomas

[16:57] isn't willing to put it out there in the car while these people are working road

[17:01] trip something like that don't tell us don't

[17:05] » I don't shove it I think she wants to say that there special times for in for

[17:11] people that are 14 >> I will repeat my grandfather or 190

[17:17] to work is good for your soul and it's good for everyone's soul.

[17:24] » I I'll give you this historically u some of the some of your examples have have

[17:30] have uh been examined. Um we can go back we can examine those again. Um the

[17:36] nuance to some portions of that I absolutely agree with you Judge. It's

[17:41] one of those things that had been a mindset um of reinstituting a community

[17:46] thought pattern of reinstituting um some some some life expectations. Get up

[17:53] early, get out of bed, go do something, get active. Um those kind of things for

[17:58] people who may not have before. getting them slid into um um some some positive

[18:06] actual thought patterns that getting out of bed, going to worry, taking care of

[18:10] themselves. Um the other issue that she's describing, which is a bit of a

[18:15] nuance, and yes, can be solved if we're the ones

[18:19] with the accountability. The question is how how how thin do we

[18:24] get spread consistently being the only ones being the accountability partner?

[18:29] The other problem is the moment that's not us is what she describing is the

[18:36] criminal the criminal thinking creeps back in every single officer available

[18:41] has had to do an investigation on a forgery of community service not unlike

[18:45] a forgery of the AA sheet or one of those other things you know where you

[18:49] look at you you allow them um that and Miss Fogman and I discuss pretty

[18:57] regularly And maybe more intensely in the last

[19:01] several weeks, internal and external controls. You know, we have that

[19:05] external control, it's our expectation and we have to kind of slide them into

[19:13] internal controls to where they're making those positive decisions on their

[19:17] own. Coming out here, there's an extensive amount of expectation for

[19:22] external controls in almost all aspects of their life. this community service

[19:28] program as it stands, which you're correct, maybe there's some other uh

[19:32] programming that we can institute starts actually putting too much internal

[19:38] controls for themselves before they're probably ready for it. So, they're

[19:42] making decisions they shouldn't be before they should be allowed to make

[19:45] them. Um, if it was a road crew, yeah, they wouldn't get a break. They wouldn't

[19:50] be able to debate. They'd be held accountable if they weren't working. All

[19:53] the rest of that stuff. what she's describing is, you know, um placing them

[19:58] out in some other places. And yes, she's correct. They're all very kindhearted

[20:02] and wait for about five months before they call us and say, you know, these

[20:05] people did this and this and this and we're like, why didn't you call us the

[20:08] same day? We'll go ahead and handle that. Um their accountability threshold

[20:11] is much different than what we have expectations for out here. Um

[20:18] so it's it's a complicated uh a complicated issue. Uh I know historic we

[20:23] have examined those. Unsure whether somebody like the sheriff would be

[20:26] willing to to get involved and and do the road through thing. Um but I suppose

[20:31] we could examine it if it's if it's um the direction of the board.

[20:36] » We can definitely collect that information. I think um I know I think

[20:40] for us when we looked at it what we saw was basically if we had and we didn't

[20:46] have the expectation for quite a large number of hours. And so

[20:50] part of the problem is uh having that number of people trying to write

[20:55] throughout the community to do these things. Um and then sometimes we have

[21:00] the problem of them uh you know returning early saying they didn't have

[21:04] anything for me to do so that's why I didn't get my hours done. And then that

[21:07] necessitates staff calling to say is that true and then we have to hold the

[21:12] DHB right Steve because that wasn't true and they just left because they wanted

[21:16] to be lazy and all these different things. And then it ratchets all the way

[21:20] up to getting a phone call saying, "Well, so and so had his significant

[21:24] other meet him here and we're pretty sure they weren't having sex in the car

[21:27] in our parking lot." That's a problem. And part of that is due to the fact that

[21:31] we have their time to their location so restricted as a means of supervising

[21:36] program that they go, "Oh, well, if I'm going to be out of community service,

[21:40] this is a perfect place for her to come meet me because I don't have any other

[21:43] opportunity to do what I want to do." basically. Um, so

[21:48] our thought being that we used it more pointedly for those as a sanction, but

[21:52] we thought it would be inappropriate for the reasons that you were describing.

[21:56] Um, but then also for those that are not employed, it's a good um kind of a good

[22:02] motivator, right? You're going to work either way. So, you should probably work

[22:08] making money instead of >> this.

[22:11] Why does it work with people who don't have jobs? that it doesn't work for

[22:17] people who do have jobs or that it not work for any of them. You're just

[22:20] suggesting you continue to throw the butt at the wall for people who don't

[22:24] have jobs. >> I think she she answered that in the

[22:27] fact that there's motivation to when they're work to have some benefit for

[22:31] themselves, you know, if you're out. So, I guess the clarification is yeah, we're

[22:36] not saying no community service for anybody. it can still be used for

[22:39] sanction. >> I don't have to do it.

[22:41] » Okay. Then >> and then I think secondarily what I

[22:44] would add to that is that having only a certain group doing it for example those

[22:49] that are sanctioned or those that are employed allows our staff much more time

[22:53] to make sure that we can supervise it appropriately and verify make sure that

[22:57] things are going the way that they were supposed to be going instead of trying

[23:00] to do that for every participant in the program.

[23:03] » Listen to my simple request. I'm going to lose it. I know it. I accept it.

[23:10] Okay. But before you do it, I would like you to explore whether there are any

[23:18] viable options. And the reason I say that is this. Sheriff Thomas and I do

[23:24] not see eye to eye on security. Anybody who's been around us knows that we do

[23:29] not take at all. But here's the thing. There has not been one single time I can

[23:36] think of that I didn't ask for ter assistance in doing something and he

[23:41] didn't do it. That's just been my experience with me

[23:46] and and so until you until you at least talk to him find out a few things I I'm

[23:53] just not in favor of moving rapidly. That sounds like a motion to table from

[24:03] » second.

[24:10] Just quickly question. Isn't there anything they can do here?

[24:17] » Yes. Uh we often have people doing community service work here and that has

[24:21] never been an issue. Um are the concerns that ever

[24:30] » it can be handled. >> Um

[24:35] the concern for us with that is that well as the rules are written right now

[24:38] it's uh three and a half hours a week to complete and we don't have that much

[24:44] work for each person to do three and a half hours a week.

[24:56] Okay. Um, moving on to updates. Uh, just wanted to give everyone an update that

[25:01] our staff, we do continue to work through our, um, community supervision

[25:05] goals that were developed during our time with the

[25:10] Department of Corrections, University of Cincinnati. Uh we're still working on a

[25:15] motivational assessment, uh creating a transition plan for participants to exit

[25:19] the program, piloting a couple assessments, and uh creating a CQI

[25:26] program to kind of run with our treatment providers. Uh we're going to

[25:29] be going out to um sit in on some groups, see how they're run, and also

[25:36] giving participants exit surveys about treatment to see how

[25:41] they felt their time of treatment went. Um and then we're going to be sharing

[25:45] those with the treatment providers so that they can have uh the information

[25:49] that we're also receiving. And second one, just an update that we

[25:54] are going to be starting a six week class targeting um parenthood issues for

[25:59] people in the criminal justice system and that starts later this month.

[26:09] Question concern

[26:13] any other business?

[26:19] No. Uh, entertain a motion to adjurnn.

[26:25] » So move second. Steve, >> thank you very much.

[26:33] You have next meeting. >> September 12th, next meeting. Thank you

[26:38] all.

DCCC Advisory Board 07-11-25

Transcript