District court requests $180K in opioid settlement
For dedicated vehicle, gym partnership
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HOUGHTON -- Houghton County 97th District Court has submitted an itemized budget request seeking $170,000 in first-year county opioid settlement funds to purchase a dedicated supervision vehicle and establish a localized drug testing framework, according to county work-session documents.
In addition to the primary work-session packet, newly surfaced court records obtained by The Daily Mining Gazette reveal the court is also seeking an additional $10,000 annually for treatment court alternative programming and participant incentives.
The multi-year spending proposal, submitted by Judge Nicholas Daavettila, outlines a recurring annual operational cost of $135,000 for subsequent years following the initial capital expenditures. The supplementary records, authored by Daavettila in an Oct. 19 memo to County Administrator Chelsea Rheault, increase the district court’s total first-year funding request to $180,000, with a recurring annual requirement of $145,000 thereafter.
According to the itemized summary sheets, the court requests a flat $120,000 annually for treatment court, probation and pretrial drug testing. The proposal also seeks a one-time capital allocation of $35,000 during the first year to purchase a reliable vehicle dedicated to the Treatment Court home-check officer, coupled with ongoing annual allocations of $10,000 for vehicle fuel and $5,000 for routine vehicle maintenance, tires and repairs.
The document states the home-check officer requires a dedicated vehicle to execute unannounced home and workplace visits across rural areas where distances between participant residences are substantial.
The court’s itemized calculations show the Houghton County Treatment Court currently serves approximately 30 participants. While Medicaid covers testing for six individuals, the court requires county funding to test the remaining 24 participants twice per week. At a localized cost of $34 per test, the annual treatment court testing expense is logged at exactly $84,864.
The court also supervises a separate pool of approximately 10 to 15 probationers and pretrial defendants who require substance testing twice per week at a rate of $21.50 per test, projecting an additional annual expense between $22,360 and $33,540. While the raw combined testing calculations range from $107,224 to $118,404, the district court proposal requests a flat $120,000 annually to cover caseload fluctuations and additional testing ordered by the Circuit Court.
The off-packet Oct. 19 addendum requests $2,500 annually to maintain a partnership with Snap Fitness to provide treatment court participants with mentored physical training as an alternative to attending regularly scheduled sobriety meetings. The memo also seeks $7,500 annually for participant incentives associated with phase advancement and successful graduation from the program to provide positive reinforcement.
The district court’s moves to fund separate localized drug testing lines, dedicated vehicles and alternative programming come amid questions regarding statements made by Daavettila during the implementation of the Marquette Regional Community Corrections (MRCC) program.
According to Daily Mining Gazette records from May 28, Daavettila personally addressed the Keweenaw County Board of Commissioners to pitch the regional corrections alliance, stating the court lacked an effective mechanism to monitor compliance among individuals released on bond.
“One thing I have always lacked as a District Court judge is the ability to really, appropriately, monitor folks who have been arrested for a crime, and then bonded out at arraignments,” Daavettila stated in May. “Partnering with MRCC, we’d be in a position to have what I’ve always been looking for… a pretrial services officer, basically.”
The Houghton County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously in May to enter the regional partnership following a public presentation by MRCC Director Trevor Kadlec. Kadlec’s appearance before the board was made at the direct request of Daavettila, Circuit Court Judge Brittany Bulleit and Treatment Court Case Manager Andrea Johnson.
During that May 12 session, Kadlec explicitly stated that joining the regional corrections program would be at “no cost to the counties” because operations are fully funded through state Public Act 511 grants administered by the Michigan Department of Corrections Office of Community Corrections. Kadlec explained that the state grant funds would directly cover regular drug testing, electronic tracking and regular check-ins with program officers to avoid duplicate administrative tracking costs within local county operating budgets.
The county board is scheduled to review the district court’s itemized request during its upcoming monthly work session to address why the court is seeking local settlement funding to establish localized testing, alternative programming and field checking infrastructure duplicate to the services covered under the active Marquette regional corrections framework.