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Corey says DOC grant cut prompted vendor swaps and $350,000 in savings
Summary
Tippecanoe County’s community corrections director reported the program faced a DOC grant reduction this year (about 7% for the current year and a roughly 15% planning cut earlier), and described cost-saving steps including switching electronic-monitoring vendors to save more than $350,000.
Corey reported the county’s community corrections program was notified of a Department of Correction grant reduction and that the program has repositioned to absorb the cut. “We were notified roughly 30 days ago or so that our grant was cut, about 15%,” Corey said, adding the current-year award was cut about 7%.
To bridge the shortfall, Corey said staff pursued procurement changes and contract consolidation. “By switching from one vendor to another, we saved over $350,000,” he said, and countywide master contracts and bulk buying also yielded additional savings. Corey said operational lines—supplies, work‑release purchases and other day‑to‑day costs—were trimmed as well.
Corey described early technical problems after the vendor change, including a rise in alerts and signal failures. The vendor shifted a subset of devices to a different cellular carrier and added beacons where building signal was poor; simple GPS‑zone adjustments (for example, enlarging or moving a smoking zone by 10–20 feet) reduced false alerts. “We faced some growing pains and some changes, but largely we’ve worked through those,” he said.
The board did not receive detailed state scoring feedback on its DOC application, Corey said, and observed that census and tax‑levy data appear to drive portions of the state formula. He said staff will keep funding at the forefront during the county budget process.
