The Tallapoosa Circuit Drug Court is at the center of new allegations posed by its former coordinator, who resigned only after months in the position and having left making allegations against the company who are supposed to be providing a full range of services for only $7,000 a month.

Robert “Vann” Blankenship Jr., former program coordinator for the Tallapoosa Circuit Drug Court, resigned on Wednesday, November 17 by e-mail that was forwarded to multiple officials within the county, including local commissioners and members of the Board overseeing the Drug Court in the Tallapoosa Circuit.

Blankenship explained in the email obtained by Polk.Today that he had multiple issues with the contractor, Center Beyond Solutions, LLC. The Drug Court pays $7,000 a month (or $84,000 a year) to the organization since the contract began on August 1 to provide services with participants of the drug court, ensuring they are meeting requirements including time spent with those individuals.

He alleged in his resignation email to Judge Lim and others that Center Beyond Solutions were failing to meet a number of requirements set forth in the contract, including but not limiting to completing assessments in a reasonable timeline for individuals who were enrolled since September, that the organization is failing to meet with individuals for the required amount of time in classes, that they are refusing to transport participants, using non-certified, non-clinical staff to conduct assessments at the jail, and more.

“The failure to enforce contractors to complete duties has left this program out of compliance with standards of Council of Accountability Court Judges. I can no longer serve and complete my duties and therefore have no other option but to resign,” Blankenship stated in a separate resignation letter.

Here’s the full e-mail from Blankenship sent out to officials:

Additionally, here’s the contract that was signed in June, and an action plan that Blankenship included in the email as well.

Subsequently in a follow-up conversation, Blankenship made it clear that he had tried several times to notify Judge Lim of the issues and attempted to renegotiate the contract to require Center Beyond Solutions to meet the areas where they were not meeting standards on a deadline for CACJ – the Council of Accountability Court Judges – items to be met.

He reported that based on what he has seen while as the program coordinator, the drug court is violating the terms of a grant that is used to pay for the Drug Court operations itself. That could make the county and the court liable for the money already paid out during the first quarter of the fiscal year for operations, and cut off any additional funding that could be provided to run the court itself.

Blankenship had also requested the contract be terminated and moved operations in-house to oversee the participants in the program.

The Drug Court graduated three more participants recently in a ceremony in late October.

The court is also part of the reason why Judge Lim faces charges from the Judicial Qualification Commission and a hearing set for January.

Check back for additional details on where that situation stands.

You can read an OP-ED about this and other issues involving Judge Lim at KevintheEditor.com. Note: It is subscriber-only, but paying $5 a month helps support free local news like this item here at Polk.Today.