Community Corrections and Work Release facing budget woes

Jasper — J.P. Weisheit, director of Community Corrections, told the county council his department is facing a budget crisis.

To assist in his budget woes, Weisheit requested the county assume responsibility for paying for the Community Corrections facility maintenance and upkeep.

Weisheit told the council his current budget left him in the red each month — most recently about $14,000 in the red— and, if approved, the request would allow a bit more wiggle room.

Community Corrections is funded by federal and state grants as well as fees collected from the inmates at the facility. They receive $400,000 from the state each year but have been spending about $48,000 a month on operations in the recent months.

The inmates pay dues to take part in the program and according to Weisheit, corrections is losing money due to inmates not paying those dues.

“We are stuck between a rock and a hardplace,” Weisheit told the council. ” If the inmates don’t pay, we can send them back to the jail, but then the taxpayers will assume all the cost for their lodging and that includes their medical care and medicines.”

They have other options like garnishing the inmate’s wages, but Weisheit says they can’t typically collect because of the precedence of other garnishments, like child care, that come before the corrections center’s charges.

The community corrections and work release programs are designed to relieve the tax burden on the jail. In addition they also allow offenders to remain productive in the community and for their families. According to Weisheit, community corrections saves the county 100s of thousands of dollars a year by taking offenders out of the county jail.

He presented those numbers to the council and then asked they assume a $33,500 yearly expense for general building maintenance and wages for Jerry Gramelspacher, the center’s maintenance person. “The [Community Corrections] advisory board decided that the county owns the building and the county should help maintain it,” Weisheit told the council. “I am hoping the council will see fit to just take that on from now on.”

To further offset the budget shortfall, Weisheit has applied for another grant from the state that will be good for two years. “I asked for $150,000 from the Department of Corrections and am hoping to get $50,000.”

Because the budget and request had not been advertised, the council only made an oral commitment to assume the responsibility paying for maintenance on the building.

The Dubois County Community Corrections facility is the sixth largest in the state with 102 beds, according to Weisheit.