Criminal Justice

Taylor County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council September 24, 2025 Attendance: Honorable Ann Knox-Bauer, Treatment Court Coordinator Wendy Ness, Suzanne Stanfley Kala Thompson, and Jasmin Skerven of Taylor County Human Services, Attorney’s Adam Fontana and Brady Loos of Wisconsin Public Defender’s Office, Corp. Counsel Attorney Courtney Graff, LeeAnn Raab of DOC, Deputy Lisa Kauffman, Deputy Clerk of Court Jessica Nernberger Suzanne motions to approve last meetings minutes. Courtney seconds the motion. Motion carried. Courtney motions to approve the agenda for this meeting. LeeAnn seconds the motion. Motion carried. Recovery Grant Funds: Wendy Ness asks for approval of grant funding. The grant is due October 2, 2025. She is seeking $109.999.00, the County would match $36,667.00 totaling $146,665.00. LeeAnn motions to approve the request, Jasmine seconds the motion. The committee is in favor of approving the grant fund submission. Recovery court policy: Wendy suggests to create a subcommittee that can go over policy and procedure changes with recovery court. The CJCC meets only quarterly and some of these changes happen more frequently than the CJCC can get together. The subcommittee would go over these changes and then report back to the CJCC when they do meet. Substance Abuse Restorative Justice 2026: The substance abuse restorative justice will run with the OWI panel. Monelle has two speakers for substance abuse and two speakers for the OWI that everyone will listen to. Still trying to work out how to handle the fees for the drug related cases. There is very little to no wiggle room to modify court costs to cover the program fee if ordered through the court. Monelle meets with people individually if they are unable to afford the program fee. She is willing to continue to do this with the drug related cases to help them work out a payment plan or use a sliding fee scale. Treatment Court Update- Wendy Ness updated the council with the following: • There are currently 10 active participants in the program. One individual is being sponsored through the opioid funds. • Wendy is working on rewriting policy for the different phases of the program and working on the grant. • Alumni group has met and the meeting went well. Will continue to try to involve the alumni. • Smart recovery has been put on hold. Wendy was handling all of the meetings, multiple a times a week. She is looking at getting a different venue to hopefully allow more participation. Also working on getting the word out on what Smart Recovery is, so that people know and understand the program. • The rummage sale went well. Looking at possibly holding one in the winter. • Peer recovery is going well. They have a new individual who is involved and has lots of ideas to help those that are involved. The Public Defenders Office will have a new attorney starting soon. Attorney Jason Jones. DOC has a new hire as well. LeeAnn will bring her around to meet everyone once orientation is done. Next meeting is scheduled for January 9, 2026. Motion to adjourn meeting by Brady, seconded by Courtney. Meeting adjourned at 9:25 AM. Submitted by Jessica Nernberger Taylor County Deputy Clerk of Court TAYLOR COUNTY CRIMINAL JUSTICE COORDINATING COUNCIL July 11, 2025 Attendance: Honorable Ann Knox-Bauer, District Attorney Kristi Tlusty, Treatment Court Coordinator Wendy Ness, Suzanne Stanfley of Taylor County Human Services, LeeAnn Raab of DOC, Brady Loos and Adam Fontana of Wisconsin Public Defender’s Office , Corp. Counsel Courtney Graff, Monelle Johnson of Restorative Justice , and Jessica Nernberger Deputy Clerk of Court. No corrections to the previous minutes. Creation of Drug Offender Victim Impact Panel - Wendy Ness discussed creating a drug offender victim impact panel and what that would look like. Monelle Johnson said we would have enough speakers. No other place is doing a drug vict im impact panel, therefore we would be paving our own path to create and run the program. Discussion held on how to run the program. There would be enough offenders to participate. Court could order it as a condition of probation. LeeAnn also said they could use it as a response for a violation of probation. Discussion held on the fee for attending the program, if it would be run through restorative justice or treatment court, the incentive to have offenders attend the program, have it take place the same time as the OWI victim impact panel and call it the substance abuse victim impact panel. A sliding scale may be used to help with the fee as well as using other funding that is available. Consent to medical decisions -Suzanne Stanfley discussed h ow they would like to add specific wording in a court order regarding joint and legal custody for making medical decisions with children enrolled in CLTS. Courtney Graff brought up how it’s hard to do an order with that language, unless it’s done on a case -by-case basis. It was agreed to see if a parent would be able to sign an agreement first, before it would be taken to the Court for an order. Treatment Court Update-Wendy Ness updated the council with the following: • They recently had two more graduates. • They earned $784.00 at their rummage sale. They plan to have another one August 25-28. • A participant is taking over their alumni group. • They have their Smart Recovery program up and running with 5 facilitators. • 1 participant is going through treatment court using the opioid funds. • Wendy held a lunch and learn with the participants. It was well received. Discussion held about the MRT program, and trying to get this program as well as others into the jail. Suzanne Stanfley also touched base on the Youth Just ice Innovation grant. They feel youth mentoring would be good, especially with the juvenile offenders. The diversion program has been going well. The program is 5 weeks and works with many different departments and groups of people. The youth really seem t o like the group of trusted adults that they can work with. Also, the Council feel that the mentoring is good for law enforcement and others to see the good progress that individuals are making. Kristi Tlusty and Brady Loos gave an update on how the pretrial conferences are going. Defendants are fine with coming in person, and gives them a chance to talk to their attorneys more. Some attorneys are not showing up to the pretrial conference. Working on solving that issue. Too soon to tell if it will alleviate the multiple status hearings being scheduled. Going to push more for scheduling preliminary or waiver hearings earlier on in the felony cases. Will touch base again on this topic in October. Next meeting scheduled for October 10, 2025. Honorable Judge Knox-Bauer will be gone for this meeting. District Attorney Kristi Tlusty will facilitate the meeting. Submitted by Jessica Nernberger Taylor County Deputy Clerk of Court TAYLOR COUNTY CRIMINAL JUSTICE COORDINATING COUNCIL January 10, 2025 Attendance: Honorable Ann Knox -Bauer, Clerk Jill Scheithauer, District Attorney Kristi Tlusty, Treatment Court Coordinator Wendy Ness, Suzanne Stanfley and Jasmin Inez of Taylor County Human Services, LeeAnn Raab of DOC, Deputy Lisa Kauffman, Sheriff Corey Dassow, Chief Deputy Sheriff Chad Kowalczyk, and Monelle Johnson of Restorative Justice. A motion was made by Kristi Tlusty and seconded by LeeAnn Raab to approve the minutes from the October 2024 meeting. Said mi nutes have been posted on the Taylor County website. Corey Dassow was sworn in as Taylor County Sheriff and Chad Kowalczyk as Chief Deputy. Discussion was held about filling the vacant dete ctive spot and that TASO has been approved to move forward with hiring a new deputy to fill the front door position when the security system is up and running. Restitution – DOC and Clerk of Court’s office is looking for clarification as to who collects restitution on prison cases. Treatment Court Update - Wendy Ness updated the council with the following: • There are currently 7 participants in the program; • Wendy and two participants have been trained as smart recovery coaches. Meetings will be held at the Community Center at the Taylor County Fairgrounds. One participant has also been trained in peer support. • They are actively looking for fund raising options. They are working with Restorative Justice. • Taylor County Human Services submitted a grant application for $125,000 to try and get a family court up and running. It was turned down. Jasmin gave an update advising TCHS is fully staffed, including an additional social worker. They are also hiring an additional economic support provider. Next meeting scheduled for April 18, 2025. Submitted by Jill Scheithauer Taylor County Clerk of Court