Probation Program Supported Commissioners Say They Won’T Cut New Misdemeanor Supervision System

Money may not be available to hire a new probation officer, but county commissioners said Thursday they do not plan to cut the fledgling misdemeanor probation program.

Commissioners are taking a hard look at the supervision program’s proposed 2000 budget but disputed claims they are about to cut it because it has not become self-sufficient as they had anticipated.

Probation officials have asked the commissioners to approve a $117,000 budget next year, about twice last year’s spending. Commissioners have not yet made a decision on the program’s budget.

“We’re trying to cut $2 million out of the budget $10 at a time,” Dick Panabaker, commission chairman, said. “We’re asking every dang question we can.”

The program, which currently tracks 156 people convicted of misdemeanor crimes ranging from hit-and-runs to minor sex offenses, began in October. Repeat drunken driving offenders and people convicted of domestic battery are most often ordered by 1st District Court magistrates to complete supervised misdemeanor probation.

Probation officials collect nominal fees from offenders to subsidize the program’s costs in hopes the program will eventually pay for itself.

Currently, probation officials estimate they are receiving about 80 percent of the money they should be from offenders - enough to cover nearly half of the program’s costs.

Reports began circling among the criminal justice community last week that the program was about to be cut because income fell below expectations. Commissioners, who were deluged with phone calls and letters in support of the program, said they never intended to terminate the program.

Instead, commissioners said they were seeking more information to determine if an additional probation officer was justified. Probation officials anticipate as many as 400 offenders will be enrolled in the program by the end of next year.

“We’ve got 29 requests for (new) positions,” Commissioner Ron Rankin said. “We have to prioritize these.”

Misdemeanor probation administrator Greg Orlando, the program’s only probation officer, meets monthly with every offender who has not been arrested or moved without telling him. He verifies they are still employed, attending court-ordered counseling and drug-free.

Orlando also collects monthly fees he hopes will one day pay for the program. State law allows counties to charge misdemeanor offenders $35 per month, a fee 1st District Court Judge Craig Kosonen has limited to $30 in Kootenai County.

Amounts offenders pay are on a sliding scale based on their income, but everybody pays something.

Proponents of the supervision program tout its social benefits alongside its accountability requirements.

“It’s hard to measure the success of the program in dollars and cents,” Prosecutor Bill Douglas said. “It’s kind of like the lighthouse on the coast. You don’t know how many ships you save.”

Questions of how many offenders the program keeps out of jail and how much money that saves the county also are hard to quantify, officials said. However, few question that mandatory supervision helps to reduce the population of the long overcrowded Kootenai County Jail.

“If supervised probation is not available to me, I’m going to be looking at imposing more jail time,” Magistrate Barry Watson said.

Commissioners said that’s one of the reasons they support the program.

“It kind of got rolling a little bit that we were going to ax this thing,” Panabaker said. “We’re not.”