Sheriff discusses drug crisis, jail overcapacity and mental health issues in Marathon County
By Valorie Brecht Like other law enforcement agencies across the state and nation, the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office is dealing with mounting challenges, including the fentanyl epidemic, an outdated jail facility and large increase in mental health crises officers are called upon to respond to. In a recent meet-and-greet event at the Spencer library, Sheriff Chad Billeb spoke about these interconnected issues, as well as potential solutions and barriers to implementing those solutions.
Billeb, who has worked in law enforcement for more than 30 years, first gave an overview of how the drug scene has evolved over the past couple of decades. Billeb starting working for the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office narcotics division around 2005. He said at that time, crack/ cocaine was by far the most popular drug, and he also saw some marijuana. Around the time he transitioned out of the drug unit in 2008, he was just starting to see homemade methamphetamine and a little bit of crystal meth coming out of super labs. Eventually it switched to almost exclusively crystal meth. Now, he says, meth has dropped off significantly but his staff is seeing a lot of cocaine. In 2006, he said, it cost $25,000 to purchase a kilogram of cocaine in a sting operation he was part of, but now it’s only $10,000 to $11,000 for a kilogram.
“The market’s changed because there’s so much of it. So now our teams are working heavily on cocaine, but that doesn’t mean that they forget about methamphetamine or heroin or anything else. But the message that lies in all of this is, it doesn’t matter what you’re getting — methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, marijuana — we’re finding fentanyl in just about everything. So it doesn’t matter where you go, if the risk is always there that it’s going to be in something,” he said.
“It’s put in everything. It doesn’t take much to have someone overdose. Most of it is actually coming into Mexico from China. It comes into Mexico and then comes up through Mexico to us. So it’s coming from labs.
“Fentanyl used to be for a legitimate purpose (i.e. painkiller patches for hospice patients). But now they make it for an illegal purpose and they sell it in pill format. They’ll sell it in granule and add it to things. And the people that are putting it into cocaine or marijuana or whatever they’re putting it in, they’re not being scientific about it. They’re not really careful with it, and that’s how people overdose and die… They don’t intentionally kill their clients, but they are because they don’t know what they’re doing, or it’s too much, or the client gets hooked and just takes more. Their whole goal in putting it in cocaine or marijuana or anything else is to get the person hooked. So they come back for that drug.”
Billeb encouraged people to be aware of the dangers of fentanyl but not to live in fear.
“There’s a lot of misinformation about it. You can’t go … so if you had really sweaty hands and you touched it, you’d have a problem. If you didn’t, your hands are dry or what not, you’re not going to overdose. With our deputies, I tell them, ‘When you go in these homes, I want you wearing gloves. At the same time, if you happen to touch something, don’t freak out. We all carry Narcan (fentanyl overdose reversal drug) on us. We have that here for you. Just don’t lick anything, OK?’
“Be vigilant but don’t be hyper-vigilant to the point where you’re freaked out you’re going to walk into a bathroom at a gas station or a restaurant and be exposed. The likelihood of you having a contact like that and having it be dangerous for you is not reality.”
Billeb said that opioid abuse also continues to be a problem. He said although it was harder for people to get opioids now than it was in the past, they still find ways to get ahold of them, whether it’s from a family member or friend who was prescribed a strong painkiller and didn’t use the full prescription, or the person will fake an injury or illness and use the prescription drug they receive to get high or sell it.
“But a lot of what we see is illicit drugs just sold on the street,” said Billeb.
He said one would not likely see drug labs anymore, but a person might possibly see drug exchanges. Things to watch for include a vehicle pulling up to a driveway or a parking lot at the same time each day, staying for a few minutes and then leaving. Other signs could be large quantities of cash being exchanged, or the person involved in the exchanges suddenly getting new “toys” like ATVs, UTVs or boats and they’re not employed. He said the best thing to do was to watch for patterns and if it seemed like suspicious activity, contact your local police department and let them know. However, he said that drug dealers are “pretty crafty” and you probably would not see them. He also said that drug dealers and clients tend to avoid meeting at homes but instead choose a neutral location.
“They try not to do it at a home, because if they happen to own the home, especially with our federal task force, the federal government can come take the home. If they’re out doing it somewhere remotely, the risk is maybe the vehicle,” said Billeb.
The Central Wisconsin Narcotics Task Force is based out of the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office and there is an FBI agent assigned to the office that works out of the courthouse basement. Another tool in the war against drugs is the county’s fatal overdose review team, which goes over every overdose in the county to understand if there’s something they could have done differently as a community or organization to prevent that.
“That’s very little we can do other than educate. And when it comes to something like methamphetamine, there is no treatment. It’s not like you can give them Suboxone like you would for opioid abuse addiction. When it’s methamphetamine, it’s willpower. That’s what gets you off. And not having many treatment facilities makes it hard.
“Right now, the Marathon County Jail, locally, is the largest mental health facility that we have in the county.”
Billeb said thankfully the jail had access to a number of resources to help inmates struggling with mental health issues like addiction; however, it was still a challenge with such a large need. The jail has a full nursing team that is there about 17 hours a day. The facility also has access to mental health services through a medical contract, as well as a full-time mental health worker from North Central Health Care and a full-time social worker. The jail also has direct access to crisis services and a crisis team, also through North Central Health Care.
In 2019, the jail reached an all-time population high. On one day, it had 431 inmates. The jail’s maximum capacity is 279 and the state requires that it stay at 80%, or 225 inmates, so there is room to move people around if more come in. The jail was over capacity, with the approval of the Department of Corrections, and was housing out about 130 inmates a day, at an estimated taxpayer cost of $1.3 million a year. The sheriff’s office has been able to cut that number by more than half in the last handful of years.
“We’ve worked on a number of innovative projects with our local police departments and our deputies to make sure that the people that are in jail are the people that absolutely need to be in jail,” said Billeb. “There are people that don’t need to be, if they need mental health care or need to be referred out to another facility or whatever, that we’re doing the best we can to get people the services they need instead of just warehousing people because that is incredibly expensive.”
Billeb said up until about two months ago, the sheriff’s office was about 15 corrections officers short for the jail,
Marathon County Sheriff Chad Billeb talks about the challenges facing the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office during a presentation at the Spencer Village Hall/Library on June 13.
VALORIE BRECHT/STAFF PHOTO
which is about a third of all the corrections officers they have. There was not enough staff to watch the inmates. The jail was housing out about 60 inmates a day in other counties: Barron, Taylor, Lincoln, Marquette and Columbia. He said Wood and Portage counties are in a similar situation as Marathon County, and they are already contracting with Waupaca County.
The sheriff’s office recently hired nine new corrections officers. They completed their academy and were in training at the sheriff’s office as of June 13. Billeb said once their training was complete and they were ready to start, the county planned to bring the 60 inmates back, which would result in a significant cost savings for the county.
Even so, the problem remains of a space shortage in the facility. For many years, there has been discussion on building a new jail. Recently, there has been some movement in that area. Marathon County has purchased old attorney’s offices on the east side of the courthouse.
“I think when the day comes, the plan is to raze those and to build the jail there, build up, move us in there and then renovate where we’re in and move on,” said Billeb. “What I’ve told the administrator, the public safety committee and our judges is, I’m not comfortable advocating for a new jail until we figure out why our court system is so slow with the inmates we have, because I have a lot of inmates sitting in my jail for two, three, four years… What we need to know before we advocate for a new jail is, how big of a jail do we need?”
He said the district attorney’s office had done an “incredible job” of shortening the time between when they receive a referral from law enforcement and when that person is charged. He said the delay was happening between a person being charged and their case actually being ruled on. In the meantime, people are sitting in custody and costing the county money. As examples, inmates may need dialysis multiple times a week, cancer treatment or even open heart surgery. None of those things are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. It’s 100% funded by the tax levy.
“I told you we have five deputies a day, right? If we need to transport someone for unexpected medical care, we have to pull a deputy off the road and now we’re down to four,” said Billeb. “So they’re not patrolling. We’re at a point where we’re talking about, do we need to hire a deputy or deputies just to do medical transports and mental health transports? That’s how the environment has changed.
“When I worked the road years ago, if I got one or two mental health calls a month, that was a lot. Now I’m surprised if we’re not getting one or two calls day. Some of it’s good. Some of it’s awareness and people are asking for help, and that’s good. But I think that some of it is the challenges of substance abuse of all different kinds really lend to the challenges our community is facing. And those people go into crisis because they don’t have the support they need,” said Billeb.
He said states that had been more successful in dealing with the mental health crisis had moved more toward a social worker model, in which the social worker takes the lead on dealing with the person in crisis, and the law enforcement officer is just there to provide security. He said in Wisconsin, the model has the law enforcement officer as the primary responder and the social worker is secondary, if they are present at all.
Billeb said he would love to not have to build a new jail, but the layout of the current jail is “antiquated.” He said there would come a point when the current facility was simply too old to renovate.
The jail was built in 1988, with a 100-bed addition in 1998. The facility follows a linear model, with cell blocks where officers can only view a few inmates at a time. Modern jails have a hub in the middle with pods all the way around it, so the person sitting at the hub can see everyone in the pods. If the jail changed to that design, Billeb estimated the county could reduce the number of staff needed to watch the inmates by a third. He said another problem was building costs being so high. It would cost between $100 million and $125 million to build a new huband- spokes model jail. “And with North Central (Health Care) doing a $72 million renovation, the county is bonded pretty high right now to bond for something like a county jail,” said Billeb.
Discussions on the jail will no doubt continue as the county considers how to best keep people who are a danger to society off the streets, as well as help rehabilitate individuals dealing with drug abuse and mental health issues so they can go on to lead a healthy and productive life.
The Marathon County Sheriff’s Office can be reached at 715-261-1200.
