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Commissioners discuss integrating pretrial services into restorative justice program; final decision deferred pending budget numbers
Summary
County staff proposed moving pretrial services into the restorative justice program to expand community supervision and treatment referrals and to reduce jail stays; commissioners asked for budgetary detail and agreed to revisit the plan after staff provides FY26 figures.
Belknap County staff and the county’s restorative justice and jail-supervision leadership presented a plan to integrate pretrial services into the county’s restorative justice program. Proponents said the consolidation would increase community supervision capacity, speed case processing, and help divert people from incarceration by connecting them to treatment and other services.
Presenters said the proposal would transfer existing pretrial work into restorative justice operations, bring one part-time pretrial employee into the combined team, and reassign one corrections staff member who elected a correction-officer vacancy rather than transfer. County staff and restorative-justice leaders argued the change would allow the county to spread workload across more staff, provide earlier treatment referrals and monitoring, and reduce costs tied to jail stays.
Commissioners and the superintendent of the jail raised procedural and budgetary questions. Several commissioners emphasized that the board must see documented budget numbers before approving structural changes that affect payroll and department line items. County staff said the change would reduce headcount in the corrections department by one full-time-equivalent (FTE) and would not increase overall county payroll for FY26; staff agreed to provide the board with the detailed FY26 budget numbers before the board took a final vote.
Commissioners asked for clarity on operational details, including whether the program’s physical location or departmental reporting lines would change, how stakeholders (courts, prosecutors, defense counsel, police) would be coordinated, and how revenue from diversion programs would be tracked. Supporters said the physical office could remain at the courthouse and that staff would continue to work with the jail daily, conduct interviews of newly arrested people and provide recommendations to court stakeholders.
The board did not vote on the integration at the meeting. Commissioners asked staff to provide the budget figures within the coming weeks so the board could make a timely decision before the FY26 budget is finalized.
