Regional corrections gets new boss

The region's correctional services for five counties, including Carlton, has found a replacement for its outgoing leadership.

The Arrowhead Regional Corrections executive board announced Monday that it had appointed Becky Pogatchnik as executive director. She's replacing Wally Kostich, who is retiring after serving the organization in various capacities for 37 years.

In the role, Pogatchnik will lead a staff of more than 250 people, and be responsible for ensuring probation services in Carlton, Cook, Koochiching, Lake and St. Louis Counties, a news release said. She'll also oversee correctional services at the Arrowhead Juvenile Center in Duluth and Northeast Regional Corrections Center in Saginaw.

"She came out on top in a pool of very good candidates and she has the knowledge and experience to do a good job leading the organization," said Carlton County commissioner Marv Bodie, who is also one of eight county-based representatives on the ARC's executive board.

Carlton County has $2.048 million budgeted for corrections with ARC in 2025. St. Louis County, the largest user of the probation and correctional services, spent $17.869 million for services in 2024.

"All member-counties pay their fair share toward ARC through a formula that all counties have agreed to," Bodie said.

Pogatchnik began her career as a corrections agent at the Arrowhead Juvenile Center in 1998, the news release said. She later served as a probation officer in Hibbing and Duluth, a supervisor at the Arrowhead Juvenile Center and at the Northeast Regional Corrections Center. Since 2016, Pogatchnik has served as division director for the Arrowhead Juvenile Center. A native of the Twin Cities, Pogatchnik earned a bachelor's and master's degree from the University of Minnesota.

"ARC has a very good team of division directors that work well together to serve the region," Bodie said, describing a strong relationship between Carlton County and ARC - one made stronger by joining forces with neighboring counties.

"As far as our relationship with ARC, I believe that we are able to work with all of the member counties to provide quality correctional and probation facilities and services that we would not be able to provide as an individual county," Bodie said.

Carlton County's new $75 million Justice Center, which includes a jail and justice involved female unit, will be largely used to house pre-trial inmates. The exception to that figures to be the justice involved female program, which is currently being developed to start in 2025 and house and provide programming for female offenders. ARC and its Northeast Regional Corrections campus in Saginaw are used to house nonviolent male offenders who have been sentenced in the court system.

Bodie said Carlton County is the second-biggest user of ARC services, following St. Louis County, which has three full-time members on the board. Cook, Lake and Koochiching counties round out the joint powers collaboration. "Each year, one of the four smaller counties gets a second board member on a rotational basis," he said. "This year, Carlton has the second member and I am currently filling that role."

Commissioner Dick Brenner is Carlton County's other representative on the board.