Dakota County in running for $25,000 grant

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The Humphrey School of Public Affairs and InCommons announced this week that Dakota County Community Services, Irondale High School, Mounds View Public Schools and the City of St Paul’s EMS Academy are finalists in the sixth annual Local Government Innovation Awards. A public vote will determine which one of these finalists will receive a $25,000 grant to continue innovating. Voting will open online and via text message from Jan. 7 to Jan. 15.

Dakota County's program is the jail re-entry assistant program. The jail re-entry program works to assist inmates with sucessful re-entry to the community. It provides services for housing, treatment, mental health, employment needs and more for months after their release. The program is used to help keep inmates from returning to jail, and over a three-year period saved the county about $340,000.

The winners came from more than 100 submissions for the competition, held in collaboration with InCommons, the Association of Minnesota Counties, the League of Minnesota Cities and the Minnesota School Boards Association.

The Local Government Innovation Awards competition sought programs that showed “innovation, impact, sustainably and potential for growth.”

There were categories for counties, schools and cities.

For more about the contest, go to http://challenges.incommons.org/LGIA

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