Pictured, left to right, are County Attorney Ed Ormsby; Commissioners Bob Conley, Cary Groninger and Sue Ann Mitchell; and County Administrator Marsha McSherry. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — By a vote of 2-1 Tuesday, Sept. 23, the Kosciusko County Commissioners denied a request from Living In Transition Effectively (LITE) Executive Director Tammy Cotton for opioid settlement funds so she could pursue a grant that requires matching funds from the county.

In presenting her request, Cotton explained, “I’m applying for a grant, and I need a letter of commitment from the county. This will be opioid settlement funds being used. It’s a dollar-for-dollar match, and we’re asking for $75,000 from the state and $75,000 from the county from the opioid settlement funds.”

The Family and Social Services Administration (FASSA) grant is for transportation services. She said LITE’s project is called “Access to Care,” and “we all know transportation is a huge barrier for the individuals, especially those that we serve, those in recovery and just getting out of incarceration.”

LITE currently has transportation programming under the umbrella of LITE Recovery, and Cotton said it’s worked out very well. They own their own van. The grant would require a van to be leased, and LITE also leases a second van from Enterprise Commute, who they also would be leasing a van from if they get the grant.

“This van would be specifically used just to get people from the jail to a recovery program or into treatment or to court appointments, healthcare appointments, behavior health appointments, those kinds of things,” Cotton stated. “This will enhance what we’ve already been doing.”

She said they would hire two drivers and she already has a transportation coordinator on staff who is organizing and scheduling rides. The grant would cover salaries, leasing of the van and insurance, but not gasoline.

“I feel like we’re a good candidate because it’s something we’ve already been doing and we see the need and we know the need,” Cotton continued. “I have 16 staff members who would also be utilizing the van as well, if needed, but the van that we own is currently being used by staff, so this would just give us more flexibility to get people to where they need to go.”

County Commissioner Bob Conley asked if she has a transportation system, transportation director and three vans now. Cotton said they do. They have the 12-passenger van with 150,000 miles on it that The Beaman Home donated to them a year or two ago, which is primarily used to get people from Warsaw to Milford for services and to the Recovery Café. They have a minivan that they own, primarily used by staff to go to clients or to get clients to appointments. The Commute van that they lease from Enterprise now is through the Second Chance Indiana program, which is a grant-funded program to get people to work and back, she explained.

“So we serve about 17 individuals in the county right now that are being (taken) to work every day and back home,” Cotton said.

Conley asked if they use or have access to the Kosciusko Area Bus Service (KABS) at all. Cotton said some of their clients do. She said she’s on the Transportation Coalition, attends those meetings and has been communicating with them.  

“All of our transportation services are free, so that’s one thing that helps our participants is that they don’t have to have money,” Cotton said. “A lot of times, especially people coming out of incarceration, obviously, haven’t worked so they don’t have any funds. And then we also get people, like I said, to treatment and those kinds of things, but we certainly promote KABS and what they’re doing with their deviated route and all that. I think that’s wonderful and that’s huge.”

However, sometimes, she said they’re trying to get people to places after hours and to treatment out of the county. Regarding the van they’re leasing through Enterprise, Commissioner Cary Groninger asked Cotton if she’s had a conversation with the Michiana Area Council of Governments about that because he thought MACOG has a program and perhaps even a grant opportunity to help pay for some of that. Cotton said she met with a man from MACOG at the last Transportation Committee meeting, but they have yet to sit down and talk. Groninger encouraged Cotton to reach out to MACOG for any opportunities there.

County Commissioner Sue Ann Mitchell sits on the county’s opioid settlement committee, along with Council President Tony Ciriello, Councilman Delynn Geiger, County Auditor Alyssa Schmucker and County Administrator Marsha McSherry. Mitchell said they had a meeting and went over all the materials that Cotton provided. They also got Cotton on the phone and heard the same information that the commissioners heard Tuesday.

“At that point, we feel like, there’s two sides to this,” Mitchell said. “The state is allowing the $75,000 grant. It’s a match. The state is mandating then that the county provide the $75,000 as well out of our opioid funds. It’s kind of interesting because the last one of these grants they did, the individual people had to provide it, which it seems like a bit of a different twist. But we did. We looked at everything. We felt like this was something that needed to come to the commissioners for them to make a final decision and that’s why it’s here today so we can get everyone’s opinion on how this should move forward.”

Asked by Groninger if the funding was there if LITE was awarded the grant, Mitchell said yes.

“From my perspective, with your transportation system you have worked out now, it seems like you’ve covered all your bases. We’d like to see you go to the MACOG thing, see if you can get some assistance there. With public transportation and KABS, I don’t think at this time – I make a motion we deny the request,” Conley stated.

Groninger seconded the motion, which passed 2-1. Mitchell opposed the motion.