DuPage County residents facing lower-level criminal charges will continue to have access to state-funded alternatives to prison after a county committee approved a $459,705 grant on Tuesday, Aug. 18.

The Judicial and Public Safety Committee accepted the Adult Redeploy Illinois Program Grant for program year 2027, according to the committee's meeting agenda. The money goes to the county's Department of Probation and Court Services, which runs the local program under director Kathy Starkovich.

Adult Redeploy Illinois, established by the Illinois Crime Reduction Act of 2009, gives counties performance-based grants to keep eligible offenders in community supervision rather than sending them to state prison. Services can include mental health care, substance use treatment and job training, according to the county's probation department.

DuPage County was one of the first sites in the program when it launched locally in 2011. The county's Mental Illness Court Alternative Program, one initiative funded through ARI, claims a 79% graduation rate among its 869 graduates, among the highest in Illinois.

The cost difference is stark.

According to ARI's fiscal year 2022 annual report to the governor and General Assembly, the average intervention cost roughly $4,200 per person, compared to $45,800 per year for incarceration in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Statewide, the program estimates it has saved taxpayers nearly half a billion dollars in avoided prison costs over 15 years, Capitol News Illinois reported.

As we reported Aug. 5, the same committee advanced a $52,000 family violence grant and a cold case unit truck at its Aug. 4 meeting. The Aug. 18 session also included a presentation on the FY2027 Public Defender's Office budget, though no dollar figures from that presentation have been released.

The committee additionally approved three budget transfers totaling about $21,714 to cover bilingual stipends for probation staff under the department's collective bargaining agreement. About $20,800 of that total will be reimbursed by the Office of Statewide Pretrial Services and the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts.

The grant resolution still needs approval from the full DuPage County Board before the funds are formally appropriated.