County commissioners on Wednesday, Oct. 11, voted to seek a 2024 Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program grant through the county prison.

The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency expects to award about eight grants for a two-year period, requiring a 25% match.

“It’s a competitive grant through the PCCD that, if awarded to us, would help offset the cost of our medically assisted treatment program,” warden Beau Sneddon said.

“If we won, funds would not exceed $200,000 dollars,” Sneddon said.

The total $1.5 million program supplies funds for medically assisted treatment as well as required cognitive behavioral therapy for individuals incarcerated at or released from the county prison.

According to the funding announcement, the funds also may be used to support vocational training for participants as well as training and technical assistance for staff.

“We have money set aside from the opioid trust moneys that we received to help pay for medically assisted treatment, but this helps offset some of that,” Commissioner Kevin Boozel said. “Also, we’ve been using some of the other funds from the prison to help with costs.”

Boozel went on to say the county has been “pretty blessed” to fund the program without outside aid so far.

“A lot of jails don’t have that opportunity and are really struggling to provide that treatment program,” he said.

The deadline to submit the application is Oct. 18. When the awards will be announced is as yet unknown.

Commissioners also approved a renewal of hospitalization and prescription coverage for county employees through Hallmark, with a premium increase of 3%.

“For a lot of entities that are purchasing health care, their insurance went up 5%,” said Leslie Osche, commissioners’ chairwoman. “So that’s pretty good.”

Osche said the county looked at alternative insurance companies before deciding to renew with Hallmark, calling the renewal “a good thing.”

Last year, according to Boozel, the county did see an increase of 5%.

“This year we were expecting 5%,” he said. “It went to 3% right at the last minute.”