County Board ponders whether or not to renew Sentence to Serve contract

The Lyon County Board was on the fence as it discussed with District Supervisor Brad Odegard the possibility of renewing the Sentence to Service contract during Tuesday’s board meeting.
The Sentence to Service program is a contract between Lyon County and the State of Minnesota and allows low-risk offenders that are ordered by the court to perform community work service in the county.
The renewal would be a two-year contract from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2023. The cost for the first year is $75,075 and year two is $77,627, an increase from the current that costs $72,537. The commissioners couldn’t seem to justify the renewal.
“There’s been some discussing, especially with these last two years, we may not be getting value out of what we are putting into it,” Commissioner Rick Anderson said. “I’ve seen the value of it, but I just hear a lot of things from staff that (uses) the program.”
Odegard pointed out that COVID-19 delayed a lot of community service work, which Commissioner Paul Graupmann seemed to be receptive to.
“The history shows that it can financially work well. I don’t want to dismantle the project because history shows that there’s (a) benefit,” Graupmann said.
The State’s duties are to provide one crew leader to supervise up to 10 offenders on a 40-hour-a-week basis. They would submit reports to Lyon County 60 days before the end of each quarter to include information on how many offenders served, the total number of offenders that are completing Sentence to Service, total offenders that exit early, total hours worked by the offenders, the dollar amount of Sentence to Service labor and the description of the work that was done.
“Do we have to actually have a contract?” Commissioner Crowley said. “Say we have a service that needs to be filled. Could we just hire Sentence to Serve for that rather than for the whole year?”
Odegard responded that it’s not something that is currently an option but it would do no harm to put in the request for Lyon County.
Lyon County’s responsibilities for the contract include: certifying in writing that the offenders’ work will not be a replacement for regular or seasonal employees. The county cannot reduce its employees’ hours, wages, or benefits as a result of the services. The county would also need to acquire permits, licenses, or special authority for the projects that are referred to the State and recognize that the offenders aren’t dangerous but sentenced by the court to do community work service instead of jail time.
Board Chair Steve Ritter said there was a lack of trust with timecards and hours completed in the past and that he would be more open to a contract renewal if there was a sign-off from a supervisor for the time paid.
“There needs to be more trust for me to know that we’re getting our dollars worth,” Ritter said.
Although a decision wasn’t made, the board nominated Anderson to sit down with Odegard to iron out the details before the board approves the contract renewal.
Other meeting highlights included the approval of conditional use permits for Novel Energy Solutions to build a 1 megawatt Community Solar Garden and for Barrels and Arrows for an extended home operation that entails gunsmithing and archery services.

In other news, the board:
• Authorized the updated depositories for the County. The additions were the State Bank of Ceylon and UBS Financial Services.
• Approved the updated Telecommuting Policy.
• Reviewed and provided input to the Lyon County Employee Handbook.
• Authorized the Highway Department to enter an agreement with MnDot to receive $2,281,500 in federal funds from the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP).
• Approved the following temporary employee hires: Anna Timmerman for the Parks Worker position at $11.50/hr with a start date on or around May 17; Noah Bloome as Parks Worker at $11.00/hr with a start date on or around June 1; Sean Howk as Highway Worker at $11/hr with a start date on or around May 10; Isaac Timmerman as Highway Worker at $11/hr with a start date on or around May 10; Molly Gross as S&W Worker at $11/hr with a start date on or around May 17; Jaden Deines as HHW Worker at $11.50/hr with no set start date; Erica Jones as Engineering Intern at $13/hr with a start date on or around May 17; Jonathan Maeyaert as Seasonal Parks Worker at $16.68/hr.; and Laura Knutson as Recorder for the summer at $13/hr with a start date on or around May 19.