Rulo Strategies praises Sawyer County coordination, urges evaluations and mental-health investments
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Summary
National Reaching Rural consultants told Sawyer County CJCC the county’s coordination and data use stand out, and recommended evaluating drivers of a sustained jail population drop, using opioid-settlement grants for studies, expanding mental-health clinician hours, and exploring crisis-intervention training and transport alternatives.
Consultants from Rulo Strategies told the Sawyer County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council that the county’s interagency coordination and data use are strong and offered several concrete recommendations to sustain recent reductions in the jail census.
"The level of coordination and collaboration that we have observed just in our small time here today is just phenomenal," said Tara Kunkel, executive director of Rulo Strategies, after touring the jail and meeting with local stakeholders.
Rulo representatives noted Sawyer County’s jail census has declined since 2019 and recommended the county seek funding to evaluate what drove that decline. The consultants suggested using opioid-settlement funds or other grants to finance an independent evaluation that would quantify taxpayer savings and identify which interventions produced the greatest impact.
"One of the things you all could consider is really investing in or requesting funding to do an evaluation to really understand what is driving that drop in census because that's phenomenal and a huge taxpayer savings," Kunkel said.
Rulo recommended the county identify the top 20–30 "familiar faces" — individuals with the most system contacts over a multi-year period — and quantify costs associated with those people across agencies, then convene stakeholders to design targeted interventions. The consultants also urged increasing contracted mental-health clinician hours in the jail (they referenced a counselor, Kevin Lynch, working roughly eight hours per week) and expanding medication-assisted treatment staffing or transport options to reduce staff time spent on long transports.
On training, Rulo described the 40-hour Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) model as effective but resource-intensive; they suggested smaller counties partner regionally or use state-provided sessions to reduce burden.
The consultants framed their recommendations as options for the council and staff to consider and said they were available for follow-up questions. Because the meeting was informational (the council lacked a quorum), no formal direction or commitments were made at the session.
