- Present: Underdahl, Hoisington, Peters, Malecha
- Absent: Purfeerst
- COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS: Corrections staff team
- Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (MRRA) presentation
- Legislative changes during the 2023 session set timelines and processes for the Minnesota Reinvestment and Rehabilitation Act, which will transform the experience incarcerated individuals have during the incarceration period, creating opportunity to earn early release from prison by completing educational or therapeutic programming and activities that lower the individual’s risk of recidivism. Individuals under Supervised Release will have a similar opportunity to shorten their supervision period by remaining compliant on supervision, participating in programming, and following a case plan.
- Earned Incentive Release (EIR) program and eligibility was described by corrections staff. It includes an Individual Rehabilitation Plan (IRP), which, if completed successfully through completing credits for treatment, education, etc, the incarcerated person can be released under supervised release with 50% time off their sentence.
- The workload and impact on caseloads will not be known or realized until the earned incentive releases begin.
- Peters Q: Are they released to a halfway house or where?
- Answer: There is not halfway house in Faribault, so they are released to wherever they have support
- Peters Q: And if they are not doing a good job, you can throw them back in?
- Answer: We can monitor how they’re doing.
- Peters Q: And next year, they’re not going to assess the program, they’re just going to do it, so how many can we handle?
- Answer: We already have supervised release, so this is just an additional time that they’re on supervised release. So the impact
- Underdahl Q: What is the burden on Rice County if they return to Rice County homeless?
- A: If they come out homeless, it can end up back committing them to Rice Co. They would be released to the county where they have residence or where they have the best chance for success. We would not be accepting someone here who has no ties here.
- Underdahl Q: And is the level of service we’re providing through this greater than what we’re already doing? Because the state is not going to reimburse us.
- A: We already have supervised release right now. If there is a huge surge, we would have to look at that, but we already have the infrastructure.
- Underdahl Q: Would this require more intensive help and maybe more services to make this be successful? That doesn’t come free.
- A: There are a lot of unknowns because we don’t know what the future impact will be. Specifically, supervision abatement can remove people out of supervision, so ideally people are exiting supervision early, just as people are coming into the program. We will have more people coming into our cognitive skills program, but we have a lot of staff trained in those skills. When we come back in 2026, we can share how it impacts our case load demand.
- Underdahl Q: The presentation kept focusing on savings for the state, but that doesn’t mean it’s savings for the county. The program sounds great.
- A: This is a case where we have no control. This was approved by the state legislature, and we have to do it. From a budgetary standpoint, it could have some impact on Rice County, and we don’t have an option of saying no thank you.
- Hoisington Q: The MRRA act, how long has that been implemented?
- It was approved in 2023. The first people being released is this month.
- Hoisington Q: There’s 18 eligible statewide?
- Yes, right now in the pilot.
- Hoisington Q: We have no results about how effective this is yet, right?
- Peters Q: Hopefully we don’t get a flood of inmates in Rice County, but we’ll see how the program goes.
- Outside Agency Allocations 2026
- Sara Folsted: Seeking board guidance on what budget numbers to include in the preliminary budget. The proposed amounts have been increased by $12,405 due to increases in insurance premiums. Otherwise, they are set to 2025 levels.
- Peters and Hoisington: Keep 2025 levels but with insurance adjustments.
- Malecha: It’s going to be a tough year for the outside agencies and county. As long as we’re not going backward, I’m okay with it for now.
- Underdahl: I’m okay with it where it’s at. Inflation adjusted, a lot of these have been at these numbers for a long time, so what it’s doing for them is less. But we’re in the same situation, and we’re trying to do the same thing. The libraries are the ones that are looking for an adjustment. A lot of others know the situation and they’re not asking for more.
- Consensus: Use 2025 funding levels with insurance adjustments for all outside agencies in the preliminary budget.
- HIGHWAY: Dennis Luebbe
- Establishment of county park roads: The current access roads leading into the various county parks, and the associated parking lots, are not officially designated as ‘County Roads’. Currently, the Parks Department is responsible for maintaining these roads and parking lots. Designation as county roads will enable the Highway Department to improve services, planning, and enhance opportunities to obtain matching grants for future improvements to these facilities. The Parks Committee and the Transportation Committee support this change. If supported, right of way descriptions will be created and procedures under State Statute 163.11 will be followed. Official resolutions will be required by the Board to establish these accesses as county roads.
- Combined, these proposed park access roads would total 1.23 miles of new county roads. Designating the park access roads will not require any funding. Future costs will be managed by the Highway Department.
- Looking for discussion and feedback from commissioners.
- Malecha: Yes, it’s a good idea. Can use wheelage and sales tax dollars for this, which parks are not able to do.
- Peters: Yes, agree. Would you have to buy a right of way right away?
- A: Maybe the Cannon River Wilderness Area west would be our first effort, as the easement language is complex. The rest are all county properties, so there would be no acquisition.
- Hoisington: This only makes sense to me. We have to take care of the properties anyway, and if we can do it in a more efficient way, we should do that.
- A: And it opens up the option of accessing grant funds, too.
- Underdahl: Would the road’s terminus be at the parking lot or would it include the parking lot?
- A: Excellent question. It would include the parking lot, so we can use our funds to maintain that as well. Especially because there are some parks that don’t have access roads, only parking lots. So we could expand this list to include the parking lots, potentially.
- Underdahl: On the west entrance to the Cannon River Wilderness Area, where would the county road start?
- A: At the end of the township road.
- Malecha: We need to take that over from the township and make it all county road.
- A: That would be a significant increase in ownership.
- Malecha; Yes, but then we can control it and maintain it.
- A: That’s probably in the floodplain of the Cannon River and to move it out of the flood plain would be a significant undertaking. We can discuss in committees. It’s a great concept to pursue, but I’m concerned about what the expectations would be.
- Commissioners gave support to move ahead with this plan.
