The Monroe County commissioners have earmarked about $30,000 from this year's CED block grant to hire an addiction counselor. Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg townships will be contributing about $2,500 in grant money to the purpose as well.

The block grants are for use in housing rehabilitation, community outreach and other similar projects in low-income areas within the county."If there is something we can do to reduce the number of people who spend so much of their lives dealing with addiction, it is money well spent," Chairman John Moyer said.Moyer said the case management position will be used where the need is the greatest, including in the county jail in an effort to keep addicts from returning to jail again and again."We need to take a global approach to correct this problem," Moyer said. "I can't think of a more serious issue facing us right now. Allocating $30,000 is money well spent."Monroe County will be receiving a total of $369,000 in the grant.One of the items ratified during the meeting was the 2015-2016 Fourth Quarter Children and Youth Fiscal Report. The total spending for that period of time was $16,638,797."Children and Youth is the largest line item on the county's budget," Moyer said."But we recover about 80 percent from the state. The jail is about $15 million and we pay 98 percent of that ourselves. This is one of the reasons we want to keep addicts and people with mental health issues out of jail. It costs money and while there are programs in jail for them, that is not the right place for them."Rail studyThe county will use $50,000 from the Hotel Tax Fund to fund a request from the PA Northeast Regional Railroad Authority to be used as matching funds for a passenger rail feasibility study.The study will update previous cost estimates for a passenger rail service.Moyer said the county has supported the plan for a passenger train line from New Jersey to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for many years."We have heard about this train for years," said Moyer. "I hope that someday this comes to fruition. The last estimate I recall was $550 million and we know that cost estimates don't go down."Moyer pointed out that the line in New Jersey has now been extended to Andover and that it is slowly getting closer to Pennsylvania."My children have grown up hearing about the train coming," Moyer added. "It's a faint hope, but something we support."