The Tri-County Community Corrections Board met in the Polk County Justice Center on Monday morning.
The agenda began with the approval of the monthly statistics report and a Northwest Region Corrections Center (NWRCC) population reduction update last November from Tri-County Community Executive Director Andrew Larson. Reporting that they have saved an average of about 4 ½ jail days for February. Larson continued with an update about recruits and interviews for new officers. The agency conducted 29 interviews for new Corrections Officers and accepted 12 after they were completed. Larson believes that they are in a better spot in terms of staffing than before and feels that they can fill in the rest of the open positions soon. “We continue to work through and struggle with staffing issues, they have certainly slowed down in recent months, and I’m very optimistic about that. Right now, we are currently short three full-time Corrections Officers that we have conducted several interviews and are in the backgrounding phase. So, it is my hope that by the next board meeting, all positions will again be filled. Once those positions are filled, I believe our staffing should be sitting in a good position. Not only within the jail but also in our other departments as well,” Larson explained. He also reported two new resignations of officers and the official notice of retirement of another sergeant by the end of June.
The board approved both the monthly reports unanimously.
The board then took a look at their Salary Grid Implementation options. Saying they had worked with David Downey from the DDA Association back in May who gave them recommendations of each position’s market value in January, which they had discussed in their last meeting in February. The findings were that all of the positions total had most of the positions within market average, but a few were below average. About 99% of the positions were around the Bench Market Average Minimum. With the new recommendations by Downey, they’d reach about 102% of the Maximum, making them have more consistency and uniformity in their system, making it a more marketable wage system. Based on their last numbers, the high end would be around $7,000, but with significant turnover, the actual cost would be significantly lower due to many high-paying people leaving.
The board passed the recommendations unanimously and is working with the Unions to discuss the new salaries.
The board then discussed an amendment to their current Lease Agreement with the City of East Grand Forks on a Probation Satellite Office for the East Grand Forks City Hall Building. With it adding 200 sq. ft. of meeting space to their existing plan for a total of 1,223 sq. ft. in office space in their East Grand Forks Office for a new total of $2,000 for the project. “We have a satellite office in the East Grand Forks City Hall. We included some added square footage space in our 2022 budget request. That space is now available, so the board approved an amendment agreement with the City of East Grand Forks so that we have about 200 additional square feet of office space now that we’re able to use for meetings and that sort of things, which will be a good thing for the Probation Department, he explained, “They’re trying to juggle schedules because we have limited space available to us because some of the rooms over there are shared with other departments that utilize that building. This will give us a space of our own that we can use in case we have to meet with clients or offenders.”
The board approved the amendments unanimously.
The board then heard a few miscellaneous items, including a Bureau of Prisons NWRCC Interim Monitoring Report of February. There were no issues reported, and required no corrective action by them. Then they began discussions for their Employee Recognition Event that is taking place at the UMC Bede Ballroom on Wednesday, March 16th, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m, where they are recognizing employees for their work and giving out awards for specific actions, as well as a presentation by Michael Kutzke on resilience training in the field of Corrections.
The next Tri-County Community Corrections board meeting will take place in April.
