LEONARDTOWN — The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office will keep the same amount of state grant money for addiction treatment at the county jail, but it now arrives in two pieces instead of one.
The Commissioners of St. Mary’s County on Oct. 27 accepted two Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners grants, known as RSAT, from the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy: $148,787 for Part 1 and $45,442 for Part 2. The sheriff’s office had applied for a single $194,229 grant, a sheriff’s office representative told commissioners. The two awards add up to exactly that amount.
The money supports the jail’s program offering medications for opioid use disorder, or MOUD, at the St. Mary’s County Detention and Rehabilitation Center. Commissioners approved each award and a related budget amendment in separate motions, with no opposition heard.
Where the money goes
- RSAT Part 1, $148,787: partially funds a contracted registered nurse and two contracted peer recovery specialists.
- RSAT Part 2, $45,442: partially funds a contracted registered nurse supporting the same program.
Both grants carry a 25% non-federal match. The sheriff’s office said that match was already built into the county’s approved fiscal 2027 budget and will be covered through the salary and benefits of its full-time offender reentry case manager, so the split does not add new local cost. The budget amendments shrink the original project’s spending authority to $148,787 and create a separate $45,442 project for the second award.
Part of a larger staffing picture
The grants are one of several funding streams keeping the jail’s treatment program staffed. Last week the Chronicle reported that commissioners used opioid settlement money to fund jail addiction care staff.
Maryland law requires local jails to offer that treatment under House Bill 116, passed in 2019. The law requires all 24 jurisdictions to screen for opioid use disorder and provide methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone during incarceration and at reentry, but it did not come with state money, according to a 2025 Johns Hopkins study of the program. That study found people held in Maryland jails described the treatment as a major improvement over forced withdrawal, while also reporting delays in getting medication, stigma from staff and limited counseling.
Counties have pressed the state to help pay for the mandate. This year the Maryland Association of Counties supported House Bill 1162, which ties the jail treatment requirement to specific state agencies and funding sources, including opioid settlement funds, appropriations and grants.
Peer recovery specialists, the positions the larger RSAT award helps cover, are people with their own experience of recovery who are trained to support others going through treatment.
The sheriff’s office has drawn on several outside funding sources this fall; last week the Chronicle reported on a $800,000 federal grant that will buy the office a mobile command vehicle.
