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Commissioners delay in-prison treatment program vote

The Lycoming County commissioners voted Thursday to delay action on allowing drug and alcohol treatment sessions in the county prison through a $50,000 agreement with West Branch Drug and Alcohol.

Commissioner Tony Mussare made the motion to wait, not because he doesn’t support the idea, but because the county has limited funds to allocate toward drug and alcohol treatment despite having many programs for drug and alcohol treatment to fund, he said. He said he wants to discuss the matter further before approving or denying the agreement.

“I’m not against this whatsoever,” he said. “We know from experience that, if (addicts are) not in an intensive program, the success is not there.”

The idea behind having an in-prison substance abuse treatment program is that drug and alcohol addicts could receive treatment faster. If successful, the number of repeat offenders could decline, saving taxpayer dollars and bed space in the prison.

“This is another tool in the toolbox to address the ongoing epidemic,” said Chris Ebner, deputy warden of inmate services.

However, a maximum of $50,000 only will fund the program for just under nine weeks, which would include three sessions per week focusing on group and individual counseling as well as education. Mussare is unsure if that time frame will be long enough for the program to see success and make a case for future funding.

“Should we save that $50,000? Is there another program where we might need it?” Mussare asked.

Commissioner Rick Mirabito encouraged approving the contract at Tuesday’s meeting, but agreed the commissioners should hold off on the vote.

“From a common sense point of view, to have people incarcerated and not doing something during incarceration to work on the problem that brought them to the prison didn’t make much sense to me,” Mirabito said. “Why are we having people sitting in prison, twiddling their thumbs?”

“We have ‘x’ amount of money that we can put towards this problem. How are we going to approach it?” he added. “How much money are we going to commit to the heroin epidemic? It can’t be a blank check.”

In another matter, during the public comment period, Todd Lauer, of Jersey Shore, suggested the commissioners look into forming maintenance agreements with companies that regularly use county-owned bridges for commercial purposes in light of the commissioners approving to spend about $156,000 to replace a bridge on Choate Circle, leading to Fisher Mining Co.

Lauer said the mining company drives its heavy trucks across that bridge dozens of times per day, adding to the wear and tear produced by normal traffic. He said municipalities are able to form maintenance agreements and the county should look into doing the same in order to save taxpayer dollars.

“It is only fair and responsible,” Lauer said.

In other business, the commissioners:

• Approved to increase the Youth Workforce Development and Employment contract with STEP Inc. from $65,000 to $90,000 due to higher enrollment and participation. The program helps foster kids, high school dropouts and other youths obtain their GEDs and gain employment as well as fill out college applications.

• Approved a professional service agreement with Dr. Russell Gombosi, pediatrician, to serve as medical consultant to the county Children and Youth Services not to exceed $15,000 from April 1 to June 30, 2018.

• Approved payment of $81,292 to Cleveland Brothers Equipment Co. for purchase and installation of a reconditioned transmission and related parts in a 2009 Caterpillar D8T at the county landfill.

• Approved the purchase of four new recycling containers in the amount of $27,863 from Eagle Equipment Corporation, of Bald Eagle, through a CoStars contract through the state.

• Approved the following personnel actions: hired Richard L. Heimbach II as a full-time replacement zoning officer at an annual salary of $35,289.56 effective Tuesday; hired Regina D. Rooker and Sergey A. Kulikov as full-time replacement custodial workers at $10.84 per hour effective July 31; hired Logan Bingaman as full-time replacement correctional officer relief at $16.01 per hour effective July 31; and promoted Logan W. Laidacker as full-time replacement telecommunicator II at $20.05 per hour effective July 16.

Commissioners Mirabito, Mussare and Jack McKernan were present. The next meeting will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

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