Call to Action! Contact Legislators Today on LRB-3845 for Additional TAD Funding
Email or Call on TAD Bill by January 16th at 4:00 p.m.
State Representative John Nygren (R-Marinette), Senator Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) have circulated LRB-3845 for cosponsorship. LRB-3845 increases funding for county Treatment, Alternatives, and Diversion (TAD) grants by $1.5 million in each fiscal year of the current biennium. Please contact your state senators and representatives today requesting that they be added to the bill as a cosponsor.
The 2013-15 state budget increased funding for county TAD programs by $1 million annually and funding for new drug courts by $500,000 annually. Forty-five counties applied for TAD grants under this new funding, but officials have indicated that there is not sufficient money to fund all those applications. LRB-3845 provides additional funds for county TAD programs that did not qualify in the first round of the new grants.
The Treatment Alternatives and Diversion grant program was created in 2005 to encourage counties to develop comprehensive, evidence-based approaches to preventing crime, reducing recidivism, and reducing incarceration costs by offering deferred prosecution and alternatives to incarceration programs. These programs were to be aimed at offenders with alcohol or other drug abuse problems.
TAD projects are proven to save money and reduce crime. An independent evaluation of TAD projects statewide in 2011 found that every $1 spent on TAD saved taxpayers $1.93 in future incarceration costs. The study also found that 76 percent of TAD participants had not been convicted of a new offense within one year of completing the program, and offenders who completed a TAD program were nine times less likely overall to go to prison than those who did not complete the program.
For a copy of the LRB-3845, click here.
The cosponsorship deadline for this legislation is January 16, 2014 at 5 pm. We are asking you to contact your legislators today to ask them to cosponsor this important bill impacting counties.