Comment on Opting out of state's offender monitoring program likely to cost Hawkins County taxpayers

ROGERSVILLE — A resolution that would include Hawkins County Sessions Court in the 50/50 state-funded electronic monitoring program for indigent offenders was pulled from the county commission agenda Monday evening at the request of Sessions Judge Todd Ross. Earlier this month, the commission’s Budget Committee agreed to include the $18,000 needed to participate in the program in the proposed 2019-20 budget, which was approved Monday. In Hawkins County, that program was keeping approximately 15 indigent offenders out of jail per month with either GPS monitoring or drug use detecting patches, as ordered by Ross. For treating drug and alcohol abuse Ross had asked the committee not to draw that $18,000 from a fund he was saving to create a halfway house for recovering addicts in Hawkins County. That fund is fed by a $100 fee attached to every DUI conviction and, according to state statute, must be used for the sole purpose of treating drug and alcohol abuse. On Aug.