[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.