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Board approves one year of Recovery Court funding from opioid‑abatement allocations
Summary
Culpeper supervisors voted to use opioid abatement authority (OAA) funds to continue the county Recovery Court for one year after a federal grant ended, approving a request to apply roughly $303,759 in OAA direct and discretionary allocations to sustain the program for FY26.
The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors on March 4 approved one year of local funding to continue Recovery Court — the county’s treatment‑focused specialty court program — after a federal grant that originally financed the program ended.
Joe Coontz, director of the county’s criminal justice services, told the board the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance grant that helped launch the program concluded in September and that there is currently no open federal continuation competition. He asked the board to approve using $105,492 from direct opioid‑abatement authority (OAA) disbursements and to authorize an application to draw an additional $198,267 from OAA discretionary allocations, for a total of $303,759 to support Recovery Court operations for one year.
Coontz said the program has had 41 participants since 2022, with 10 successful graduates and 17 active participants as of Jan. 15. He noted that program participants average roughly 469 days in treatment for those who graduate and that the cumulative number of participant days in the program was 10,356. Using a county jail cost estimate of about $135 per inmate per day, he estimated that the program has produced substantial jail cost avoidance; the presentation put cumulative jail‑cost savings at roughly $1.4 million.
Coontz told the board that the Recovery Court emphasizes frequent supervision, drug testing, close coordination with law enforcement and rapid use of monitoring technology when needed. He asked the board to allow use of OAA funds, stressing that the requested approach would not use local general‑fund dollars and that the county’s OAA accounts have existing balances. County staff told the board that OAA funds that are not applied for within five years could revert to the OAA general allocation, and urged use of the available amounts.
One supervisor moved to continue funding for one year; the motion passed on a voice vote. The board’s action covers FY26 operations. Coontz said if the federal continuation opportunity reappears the county would seek grant funds to sustain the program beyond the one‑year period; if not, staff likely would return to the board with funding options.
The approved one‑year plan includes the supervising officer position, program operating costs, and modest contract amounts for treatment supports and defense counsel (a capped defense counsel allocation was noted in the presentation).
