Chief Probation Officer Tammy Johnston requests permission from the Kosciusko County Commissioners on Tuesday to apply for an Indiana Office of Court Services grant for $170,000 for starting a Re-Entry Court. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — Three Kosciusko County departments received approval from the county commissioners Tuesday, March 12, to seek sizeable grants for programs, including a new program for the probation department.

Chief Probation Officer Tammy Johnston requested permission to apply for an Indiana Office of Court Services grant for $170,000 for a Re-Entry Court “we’re hoping to get started.”

The Re-Entry Court is a problem-solving court that would be run through the probation department, but under Judge Karin McGrath’s court.

She said there were 10 people from Kosciusko County who went to Wabash County to observe Wabash County’s Re-Entry Court on Friday. The 10 people included Johnston and representatives of the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office, prosecutor’s office and judge.

Johnston said they don’t know if they will get the Office of Court Services grant, but was seeking approval to apply for it.

“The program is not existing yet. We’re hoping to get it up and running for this year with what we have existing,” she said.

Commissioner Bob Conley asked what exactly the Re-Entry Court would do.

Johnston said as a problem-solving court, the defendant could possibly be modified from jail early in order to get more services that probation right now can give. “We have a lot of people on probation. We can’t give certain people the services that they need. So most of this grant would be for another person. It would be for personnel. We would have to hire somebody to strictly work with the people in Re-Entry Court,” she explained.

Conley asked if it was a one-time grant.

Johnston said it was for 2025. If they get the Re-Entry Court up and running, she said they will be asking for other grants for it.
Sheriff Jim Smith expressed his support for the court and grant application.

“I was with Tammy and the other eight of us who went down to Wabash County Friday. Very inspiring and encouraging. It’s a well-oiled machine that they have. Lot of great things going on down there,” he said. “We sat through a couple hours of proceedings, and just the involvement and the interaction with the judge and all the players – it’s probably not like much that we’ve seen. It’s not judges and overpowering on a bench. They’re down at the table, they’re all meeting together and working alongside these defenders.”

Smith said he thought everyone could benefit from the court from a jail, community and accountability standpoints.

“For whatever it’s worth, the sheriff’s department supports this wholeheartedly,” Smith stated. “It’s going to work well with the program that we’re trying to launch that we spoke to you all about.”

Commissioner Cary Groninger asked if there would be any matching dollars required, and Johnston said no.

Commissioner Brad Jackson asked about the future of the new person for the court if the grant only is going to fund that position for a year.

Johnston said they will continue to apply for grants. “From what I’ve seen with other counties, they are all grant funded, and once they get one grant, if you get certified, you can continue to ask for grants,” she said.

The court has to get up and running first before it can apply for some of the other grants. They also have to be certified, Johnston said, and the Office of Court Services is coming in June to help the probation department get certified.

The commissioners approved the grant application.

KCSO Chief Deputy Chris McKeand presented a request to apply for a 2024 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Program grant for up to $345,000.

“It’s a Homeland Security grant. The part of the grant that we’re looking at will help with our Kosciusko Community Recovery Program. Part of the grant itself goes toward fighting reoffending by violent offenders. We’ve done a lot of emphasis on the substance abuse aspect. This part of the grant would help us look toward, as far as the rest of it, the program is supposed to encompass the entire jail population. It would help us as far as peer recovery, mental health on that side of the coin when it comes to our recovery program,” he said.

The maximum grant the sheriff’s office can receive is $345,000. It is a matching grant. McKeand said the match would come from what the KCSO already provides inside its budget, the services they already provide and the facilities and employees they already have.

“Some of the match does come from other sources, but it should be covered in what we already have,” McKeand said.

Groninger asked if everything supported by the grant would be in the jail.

“Yeah. Well, part of it is training, so we would train with our partners who are actually outside – our community partners – the not-for-profits, things like that,” McKeand responded.

He wasn’t sure if they would qualify for all of the competitive grant or not.

The commissioners approved the grant application.

Before requesting permission to apply for a grant from the Zimmer Biomet Foundation, Dana Bailey, juvenile probation officer, asked the commissioners to approve an ordinance creating a donation fund to go toward juvenile programs.

“As you know, we come here every year asking for the JDAI (Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative) grant, that’s like $60,000 at the most,” she said. “We’ve had some conversations with others within the county, and I think that there’s a great possibility that we would be able to get some people to donate to this fund, and so we’re just asking for the creation of that ordinance fund today. If that is accepted, than I have something else to talk about.”

The commissioners approved the ordinance creating the donation fund.

Bailey then told the commissioners that about six weeks ago at the JDAI steering committee meeting, they did a presentation to about 25 people that went over “really well.”

“We have actually spoken to someone from Zimmer Biomet, and I believe that there’s going to be some funds available, but we needed to have this ordinance created first so they could donate,” she said.

Bailey said she knows that they need to get permission from the county commissioners and council to apply for grants, but Zimmer Biomet worded what they were willing to do in two different ways.

She said she’s been speaking to Adam Griner, manager of corporate social responsibility at Zimmer Biomet Foundation, but he told her they can’t move forward with providing funds until she fills out the grant information on their webpage. “So they call it a grant in one sentence, then in another sentence they call it a charitable monetary donation,” she said, then asking if she needed the commissioners’ approval to apply for the grant.

County attorney Ed Ormsby expressed some concerns as to whether or not there were strings attached to the funding. Bailey showed him a printout of the application from the website, and read aloud an email she received from Griner regarding that the grant would be written out to the county so they can show that it was given directly to a government entity.

Ormsby recommended the commissioners approve the grant, subject to legal counsel’s review of the terms of the grant.

Groninger expressed some concerns about following proper procedure for grants, including that the county council also approve the grant application. He made a motion to approve the grant request, which was approved 3-0.