The Pulaski County sheriff's office has to return money to the county after misspending grant funds.
It received a grant for the sheriff's Peers Achieving Collaborative Treatment (PACT) peer specialist through the Department of Human Services and the county.
The peer specialist contract was supposed to be from February to September 2020.
The sheriff's office applied for reimbursement in December 2020 from the Department of Human Services and received $9,186 that was left over from the employee's salary, so they now owe the county $35,802.
Katie Hargis, grants administrator for the county, said in a memo to County Judge Barry Hyde that she found the discrepancy and sent information to Legislative Audit to protect the county from any liability.
The award for the grant from the Arkansas Department of Human Services was $45,000, but the court appropriated $44,988. Hargis said the total spent on the position was about $29,000.
The sheriff's office was informed multiple times by the county administration and DHS that no extension to the contract period was available and the position would expire.
However, Russell Boyd, hired in July 2020, remained on staff through February 2021.
Deputy Chief Earnest Whitten entered into a new subgrant agreement with DHS for a PACT peer specialist program that paid for one position from February 2021 through September 2022.
The contract was not authorized and funds were not appropriated, Hargis wrote in the memo. The county administration was not made aware of the contract until March 2023 and the position was never filled.
In April, Hargis was given provider payment forms that the sheriff's office submitted to DHS for reimbursement for the position. She noticed that the contract number and period were different from those authorized and appropriated for the subgrant contract.
The time periods for each of the reimbursement forms corresponded with a time period in 2021 during which no position was paid from the fund.
The agency ended up hiring another peer support specialist in October 2021 through the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant and Substance Abuse Program grant.
Kristen Knox, public information officer for the sheriff's office, said they received the grant from DHS with an understanding that it would be extended from 2020-2021.
The sheriff's office received a new grant for that year, she said, but additional county process was required and steps were not taken by the financial administrators at the time as turnover plagued the agency.
Sheriff Eric Higgins said when using short-term grants like this, new employees are looking for a more stable career, not a position that will end in a year.
"The grants are designed that they're not supposed to be forever," he explained. "As an organization [we] had to figure out how can you transition people to full-time positions; if you're going to continue a program, grants allow us sometimes to start something and see if it works without the long-term commitment, and if the program's not working, then you're not committed to having a plan beyond that."
Higgins said the office wants to resolve the issues related to the misunderstanding with the grant and believes they will be able to "move forward."
The state is now looking to give the agency a peer specialist supervisor through a grant, he added.
"The program does a great job," Higgins said. "I think that our recidivism rate is low. If you look at people going to prison, going in, coming out of our facility and going back to prison, we're about at a 2% recidivism rate. And of course, we just started the program in 2019."
The county Quorum Court voted on Tuesday to reimburse its general fund for the PACT peer specialist's salary since the money was never spent on the position.