Kosciusko County Chief Deputy Chris McKeand, left, and Sheriff Jim Smith, right, present the grant applications for the County Recovery Program to the county commissioners Tuesday. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — After getting approval from the Kosciusko County Commissioners Tuesday, Jan. 16, and the County Council Thursday, Jan. 11, the sheriff’s office will be applying for two grants for the Community Recovery Program totaling around $1 million.

On the first grant from the K21 Health Foundation, Sheriff Jim Smith told the commissioners Tuesday, “This is in reference to a program that the sheriff’s office, for the last several months, has been working alongside several different organizations, to the likes of L.I.T.E. (Living in Transition Effectively), Fellowship Missions, Bowen Center, QCC and many others. It’s a jail program.”
He said the grant request will be for an additional employee of the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office that will be the resource navigator for the CRP.

“This program that we’re trying to implement has everything to do with peer recovery for these inmates, in transition to reentering society,” Smith said. “They’re finding down at the state, statistically, that this is what’s working, this is what’s resonating with these inmates — getting people in front of them that have lived that life. It would be easy for any of us to go in and read out of a textbook as to why addiction and drugs are bad, and that sort of thing, but what’s really working is people that lived that life prior to them.”

He said it was essential to have the resource navigator to work alongside the inmates.

The CRP will work alongside Jail Chemical Addiction Program. Smith said JCAP Coordinator Casey Trombley has done a remarkable job, but he’s spread her thin over the last several months because he’s had her spearheading the CRP program.

“So we need to let her focus on what she’s doing and put a resource navigator in there that focuses on just this — getting the inmates in touch with the peer recovery coaches and walking that walk with them as they reenter society,” Smith said.

KCSO Chief Deputy Chris McKeand said through the CRP project since it’s been started, they’ve built numerous partnerships throughout the county with the not-for-profit and service organizations, one of which is the K21 Health Foundation.

“We have worked together with them to try to put together this grant proposal. We have done that and formulated it in the format like our previous COPS grants,” he said. “So the grant itself is over multiple years. The initial year, we’re requesting 100% funding from K21, and as the years go by the funding shifts over to the county to bring that person on board as a full county employee.”
In the beginning, McKeand said the position would be 100% funded by K21, then reduces to 75% in year two, 50% in year three and so on until the position is 100% funded by the county.

“Over the course of the proposed grant itself, it’s $228,500 for K21 and the Kosciusko County part of that grant would be the $255,000,” he said.

In looking at its partnerships and grant opportunities, McKeand said they came across a second grant — the 2024 Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Grant – that became available over the past month from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.

McKeand said they applied for the ICJI grant several years ago. It is a matching grant, so the county’s matching part of the grant would be stuff they’re already funding — mental health services, substance abuse help in the jail, etc.

“The grant is for contractual services for more of that substance abuse treatment – the peer recovery, training, for electronic equipment to put that program back into the jail itself, and that grant total is for $680,000 over two years,” McKeand said.
County Commissioner Cary Groninger asked if the two grants worked together or complimented one another.

McKeand replied that the K21 grant is for the resource navigator position. The ICJI grant is part of the CRP, but it is for the peer recovery and the programming that the inmates will partake in.

On the mental health piece of the program, Smith said it’s essential. “Prior to this, we weren’t necessarily focused so much on that, more on the addiction part. But … what the state is recognizing is there’s a direct correlation with the mental health piece and addiction, and this hits all of it so we can’t be more excited about this.”

In making a motion to approve the K21 grant application, Groninger said, “I appreciate your guys’ effort on this. I know you guys were looking at IRACS (Integrated Reentry and Correctional Support) earlier, and that was almost an easier button than this is for you guys, but you realized what’s really going to make the biggest difference in the lives of those individuals in the jail, so I really applaud you for your efforts to kind of take the little tougher road, but I think at the end of it it’s going to be a road that’s going to make a bigger impact on the individuals in our prison.”

The K21 and ICJI grant applications were both unanimously approved by the three commissioners.

In other business, the commissioners approved:

• A Sourcewell contract, presented by Kosciusko County Highway Superintendent Steve Moriarty, for the purchase of a Cat 308 excavator from MacAllister for $131,483. Moriarty said it will replace the excavator that has had a lot of repairs to it, and the money is in his budget.

• The purchase of a 2022 Chevy Silverado from N & J Auto Sales, Warsaw, to be used by an investigator deputy at the KCSO, as requested by Lt. Mike Mulligan. The price of the vehicle – with just shy of 27,000 miles on it – is $40,499.

• For Groninger to be the commissioners’ representative on the county’s strategic planning committee. Also on the committee will be Mike Long representing the county council, Smith, County Administrator Marsha McSherry and Moriarty.

• A quote from J & K Communications for a five-year extended warranty for the county’s public safety system software only, including labor, software upgrades and travel charges, as presented by McSherry.

The last four of those five years of the warranty also will be for the Sidney site tower as well.

The total price is $333,825.

The next commissioners meeting is at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 30.