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WALKER-"Our STS (Sentence to Service) is thriving," Chief Deputy Erick Hoglund told the Cass County Board Tuesday, also noting several neighboring county STS programs have declined and closed.

The program is designed to enable low-risk offenders to work on a deputy-supervised crew to work off fines or in place of jail time.

Deputy Chad Emery, who supervises the crew, reported 73 male offenders joined the crew in 2017, with 71 completing the program. They worked off $2,300 worth of fines and in place of 171.1 days of jail time.

Had they been serving regular jail time, it would have cost the county about $100 per day per offender, Hoglund estimated.

Crews averaged just under four men per day. They worked 226 days. They are allowed to work for government agencies and nonprofits.

In 2017, they completed 4,675 hours of work for the county, 411.5 hours for Minnesota DNR, 357.5 hours for cities, 171.1 hours for the federal government, 61 hours for other state agencies, 51.5 hours for townships, eight hours for school districts and 1,404 hours for nonprofits.

Some of the work the crew completed was mowing and snow removal, construction and painting on the new fire hall and ambulance garages at Remer, painting the Walker Fire Hall and the new Walker Food Shelf, painting county equipment and helping the Walker and Longville food shelves move.

The county purchased a new van to transport the crew to job sites and a new zero-turn mower in 2017.

The county board Tuesday adopted the emergency management plan Tim Norton, emergency management director, recently updated. That plan requires updating every four years.

Second publication rights after Brainerd Dispatch.[[In-content Ad]]

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