The collaborative realized it wouldn’t be able to reach the original goal by 2019 and updated the anticipated reduction of jail population to 11 percent by 2020 for the new grant application. That 11 percent was based upon the foundation’s baseline population of 1,894.

But before it would approve Pima County’s funding request, the MacArthur Foundation asked the collaborative to take the reduction a step further, requesting an overall jail population decrease of 17 percent. This would put the jail’s population at 1,574, a reduction of several hundred from November’s average daily population of 1,870.

“This is a challenge, but we are up to that challenge,” Assistant County Administrator Wendy Petersen told the Star on Wednesday. “Our stakeholders are sticking with us and working with us.

“These are both efforts that we’re getting a lot of cooperation on and we believe that we can already show some significant changes,” Petersen said, adding that supervisors and probation officers with Pima County Adult Probation Department are on board. “It takes a little bit of a change in attitude, but they’re working towards this and are seeing improvements already.”