Carbon County will continue a program that aims to help inmates incarcerated as a result of addiction in 2017.

On Wednesday, the county prison board voted to recommend to the county commissioners to renew the Carbon-Monroe-Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission's treatment service contract at an annual cost of $54,000, which will come from profits of purchases from the prison commissary. The contract would run from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2017.The renewal calls for very similar services, including conducting assessments of inmates for the program, holding group therapies and developing treatment plans for each individual in the program.But instead of one counselor coming for 40 hours a week, Warden Timothy Fritz said that two counselors would be splitting the 40-hour weeks.There will be a female counselor coming in two days a week to help females in the program; and a male counselor the remaining three days to see male inmates.Currently, the program calls for a 25 inmates to one counselor ratio and the board asked if now having two counselors coming in would mean serving more inmates or staying the same.Commissioner William O'Gurek said that when the program was started in 2016, the board felt it was a start to curbing the drug problem inmates have been facing, but over the last year, he has heard from people who feel the number of inmates being served is not enough.He then said he wondered if the county could do more to serve more of the inmates who are on the waiting list and asked about substance abuse fund in the county budget."I was wondering if there was an alternative to increase those services," he said.The board asked Fritz to contact the drug and alcohol commission to see if they could come to a future prison board meeting to report on the outcomes of the program, inmates in the program who left incarceration and make any recommendations for moving forward.The drug and alcohol treatment service program through Carbon-Monroe-Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission began in Carbon in 2015.