The Tri-County Regional Community Corrections Board met at the Polk County Justice Center on Monday morning, October 14.
The September 2024 Minutes were approved, and Andrew Larson, Executive Director of Tri-County Community Corrections, continued with the Monthly Statistical Report. The average daily population for the month of September was 143.43, with 120 being males and 24 being females. The top five offenses for new admits in the month of September were Parole/Probation Violations, DWI, Hold for Immigration, Failure to Appear, and Assault. Director Larson says there has been a significant increase overall for the year in Immigration Holds. The Juvenile Center had an average daily population of 5.03 for the month of September. As of Monday, October 14, the population at the Juvenile Center was six, all from Polk County.
Next on the agenda, Larson updated the Board on Personnel Issues. There were six new appointments, four being full-time Corrections Officers, one Hybrid Officer, and one Juvenile Custody Officer. There were also three resignations. Two of those were full-time Corrections Officers and one a Correctional Sergeant. Even with the resignations, Director Larson is feeling optimistic about staffing at the facilities. “It feels like it’s trending in the right direction, although I feel like I’ve maybe said that in the past. I do genuinely feel like we are making some progress.”
Although there were hopes of having the secured side of the Juvenile Center open the first week of October, not all things go as planned, says Larson. “Staffing at the jail was just so problematic that we actually had to take a couple of the Juvenile Custody Officers and have them work in the jail to get us through a really rough stretch over there,” said Larson. “We think by the end of October; we are going to have several of our newer officers who have been trained in a couple of posts kind of take some of the pressure off in the jail so we will be able to bring those Juvenile Custody Officers back over to the Juvenile Center.” If this works out, then Larson says the Juvenile Center will be back up and running, both secured and unsecured. Larson says they still have some part-time openings they are trying to fill at the jail but the real issue at this time is that everyone is so new. “Almost half of the staff at the jail has less than a year’s experience, and that just comes with some challenges,” says Larson. “There is no better teacher in the corrections environment unparticular than just time, but I do feel like we are making some progress.”
On the agenda for the board meeting was the 2025 Budget Discussion. Director Larson explains that he expected this to be put off until November as labor negotiations are still happening. “Kind of standard process for us; I’ll typically do my big budget presentation to the Board at the September meeting,” says Larson. “In years past, they have approved it in October, this year I think it probably makes some sense to wait till November because we are currently in contract negotiations, so if we wait till November, that gives us more time just to make sure that something really out of the ordinary doesn’t come up during contract negotiations which could then potentially trip us up.” Larson added that he does not see any issues in getting the budget passed in November.
Also on the Agenda, Director Larson spoke to the board about the most recent Resource Fair held at the Correction Center. “Its something that has been done going back to like 2017, 2018, somewhere in that ballpark,” said Larson. “Something that we put on for the incarcerated population, and it’s just a variety of resources from the community, everything from employers to social services to chemical dependency, mental health providers, housing, just a variety of different resources that we really want to work on educating the incarcerated population on what resources exist within the community,” Larson says the attendance at this year’s event made the event all the more successful. “The incarcerated population really appreciates it, and we get very positive feedback from them, and we get positive feedback from many of the vendors that participate in that as well,” says Larson. “Overall, I think our participation was like 88% of the eligible population participated in the event, so I think that’s really, really good numbers for us.”
There were a few miscellaneous items on the agenda:
The Association of Minnesota Counties Annual Conference will be held Tuesday, December 10, 2024, and Director Larson will be presenting along with others from Polk County and Tri-County Community Corrections on the SUD Initiative.
The Tri-County Community Corrections Board will have two Officer Openings in 2025. Director Larson explains. “Neither Commissioners Weiss nor Bommersback sought re-election, so we will have two new board members for those vacancies.” During the board meeting, Director Larson encouraged the board to pursue possibilities to fill the Norman and Red Lake seats.
The Last Miscellaneous item was to inform the board of the Tri-County Community Corrections Advisory Board Meeting, which is coming up on Friday, October 25, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Finally, the Board went on to approve the Invoices for September 2024 and then went into a Closed Session on labor negotiation strategy and reviewed labor negotiation proposals with Attorney Joshua Heggum.
The meeting was re-opened and then adjourned. The next Tri-County Community Corrections meeting will be on November 18 at the Polk County Justice Center at 9:00 a.m.
The meeting was re-opened and then adjourned.
Tags:
