Freeborn County residents court-ordered to complete a domestic abuse program as part of a sentence will now have to look outside of a county department to do so.

Freeborn County commissioners, through official action of the Freeborn County Department of Human Services Board, on Tuesday voted unanimously to eliminate the Domestic Abuse Program, commonly referred to as DAP.

The program was operated under the Crime Victims Crisis Center.

Under the change, Freeborn County District Court judges will now only work with nonprofit organization, Group Support Services, under the operation of Jeannie Jackson, for a similar program. Prior to the elimination of DAP, perpetrators were able to choose which of the two programs to attend.

Group Support Services has been the sole provider of this program for area residents since the state government shutdown in July. At that time, all of the employees of the Crime Victims Crisis center were laid off.

At the end of the shutdown, all but Rose Olmsted, the supervisor — who was the only nonunion employee — were called back, and county officials began discussions about the possibility of reorganizing the crisis center — even potentially having its services offered outside of the county government in the private sector.

Freeborn County Administrator John Kluever said the decision to deliver the program outside of the county realm was not about cost savings — there are only minimal cost savings in doing so.

“It wasn’t due to the cost of the program,” he said. “It was whether there was someone in the community the court system was comfortable with.”

People going through the program must pay their own way to attend. Group Support Services recently instituted a sliding-fee scale.

Commissioners have discussed the future of the Crisis Response Team, another service offered under the Crime Victims Crisis Center.

Freeborn County Human Services Director Brian Buhmann said he has had discussions with Freeborn County United Way Director Ann Austin about if there are any organizations in the community that could potentially be partnered with to provide this service.

The Crisis Response Team is trained to support people who have been affected by hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, floods, vehicle crashes and shootings, to name a few.

Olmsted spearheaded the efforts of the team, which was mainly volunteers.