BUCKHANNON – The Upshur County Community Corrections and Home Confinement programs saved the county a total of $1,320,120 in regional jail fees in 2021.
Cheyenne Troxell, director for the Community Corrections program, attended the March 3 Upshur County Commission meeting to deliver the annual update on both programs.
“For 2021, Community Corrections saved Upshur County $1,042,200 in Regional Jail fees,” Troxell explained. “This is based on a six-month sentence for offenders, although we have many offenders on our program longer than six months. The community corrections program benefits the county in many ways: by reducing Regional Jail fees, reducing recidivism rates, completing community service projects and providing services to help fight the battle of substance abuse.”
Upshur County sent 120 referrals to the Community Corrections, program, 45 from Upshur County Magistrate Alan Suder, 26 from Upshur County Magistrate Mark Davis, two from Judge Jacob Reger, nine from Judge Kurt Hall, four from probation, one from parole, 29 from DHHR, one from family court, one from drug court and two county transfers.
“As you may know, we cover both Upshur and Lewis counties, so we had had a total of 342 referrals between both counties,” Troxell said. “This is a huge savings between the two counties of $2,970,270.00 in Regional Jail fees,” Troxell said. “This is also based on a six-month sentence for offenders. We look forward to continuing our great partnership with the Commission and other offices in the counties.”
In the year 2021, Community Corrections collected nearly $1.3 million — $1,289,804.40, to be precise – in fees and reimbursements in Upshur County.
“Supervision fees paid by the offenders were $16,238, drug testing fees paid by offenders were $25,146. DHHR reimbursements were $1,034,495, Scram was $4,119, other reimbursements which include grants and drug court and parole were $209,805.65, and that also includes our new grant for the telehealth reimbursements,” Troxell said.
In total, 151 people completed the program, 57 were revoked, 36 absconded, one died, 128 are still in the program and 15 were transferred to a different county.
“For the year of 2021, the home confinement program saved the county $277,920 in regional jail fees, and this is based on a three-month sentence,” Troxell said. “The program collected $66,759.10 in home confinement fees. Upshur County paid Scram a total of $14,859 for GPS monitoring fees and this shows a profit of $51,900.08 for the year.”
Home confinement received 64 referrals in 2021, and Troxell said 42 people successfully completed the program, 18 had violations, two absconded and 13 are still on home confinement. Home confinement received 21 referrals from Magistrate Alan Suder, 16 from Magistrate Mark Davis, 11 from Judge Jacob Reger, eight from Judge Kurt Hall, six from drug court and two were transferred from other counties.
“Our offender statistics included 64 who were referred, 42 who completed, 18 with violations, two who absconded, eight were revoked, 13 are still on home confinement, no one was transferred, 23 were on bond supervision, 41 were sentenced and five were rehab placements,” Troxell said.
“We’re working really closely with home confinement to get people into treatment, which is great because, before that, there wasn’t much of an option,” Troxell said. “Now, we’re able to really help with the telehealth and Sam as our treatment coordinator. That’s been amazing to have someone to actually be the center point of contact for all these rehabs because whenever it comes to rehab, we’re looking high turnover rates and high counseling, so to keep up with the people you need to contact and all of these rehabs across the state and having one person coordinate everything, we went from a 30-day wait or longer to now two, three days a week max – and it’s great.”
