Kosciusko County Sheriff Rocky Goshert updated the county council on  plans for a Jail Drug and Alcohol Center during council’s meeting Thursday night.

Goshert gave a few more details than in his report to the county commissioners  Tuesday, as the plans gained additional focus this week. The sheriff said a delegation will head to Dearborn County in southeast Indiana on Feb. 27 to learn about the JDAC there. The sheriff’s department would run the rehabilitation program out of the county jail.

“We can’t duplicate the program exactly, because they have around 200 inmates where we had as many as 330 last week,” he said.

The program would be voluntary for inmates struggling with drug or alcohol addictions and would not have any effect on their sentence, Goshert said. He said the program would cost $13 a day, per participant in addition to the $55  daily cost of housing a prisoner.



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“What we’re running into is we’re now arresting the children of drug offenders, and we’re seeing a cycle of abuse being passed down from one generation to the next,” Goshert said.

“We can’t just house people and not equip them to go back on the outside and not start using again,” he said.

“But we wouldn’t force anyone into the program. It’d have to be approved by the defendant’s attorney and the prosecuting attorney, and everyone would have to be on board before we accepted anyone into the program.”

Goshert said the program would be financed with grants and user fees. He asked for and received permission from the council to move forward in researching the program.

The sheriff also talked about the need for a body scanner at the jail. The scanner would detect illegal drugs. The cost is close to $195,000 but Goshert said there’s a program from the manufacturer that would reduce the cost to about $138,000 if the county would commit to its purchase in a timely manner. Goshert did not ask the council for an appropriation, saying he wanted to see if there are grants available to offset some or all of the cost.

Brad Bishop, from OrthoWorx, and Dave Anderson, with AcceLINX, updated the council on the various programs AcceLINX operates. Among the various discussions were programs to get high school students interested in manufacturing careers and the need for affordable housing to help attract new employees from outside the community.

County Auditor Michelle Puckett recommended the levy for the Solid Waste District remain at .0001 percent.  

In other business:

• Bob Weaver from the health department asked for and received two additional appropriations; $1,761.53 for an environment food specialist and $2,681.28 for a nurse.

• The Community Corrections program got an additional appropriation for $1,859 for a home detention officer’s pay increase, and adjustments of $141.77 for FICA and $208.19 for the Public Employees Retirement Fund. A grant request to the Indiana Department of Corrections for $356,200 was also approved.

• The sheriff’s department got two appropriations for vehicle replacement after two collisions with deer, one for $5,600 and another for $7,300. Three appropriations for vehicle repair and maintenance were in the amounts of $1,000, $923.25 and $873.30, and another appropriation for $416.50 was approved to reimburse extradition expenses not paid by an inmate.

• The council also approved receiving software from the Veteran’s Administration.

The next council meeting will be at 7 p.m. March 8.