No one knows exactly what will happen Nov. 1, when a new state law designed to keep drug offenders in treatment instead of prison takes effect.

At this point, the person charged with starting the program in Douglas County — chief executive probation officer Ron Stegall — isn’t above a little guesswork.

On a plan that had to be submitted by Sept. 1 to the Kansas Sentencing Commission, Stegall’s staff was asked to estimate the percentage of offenders they expected to successfully complete the new drug-treatment programs. Their response — 75 percent — wasn’t exactly based on scientific methods.

“We just picked a number out of the air,” Stegall said with a smile.

It will be months before Stegall’s office deals with the bigger, more philosophical questions associated with the new sentencing law — for example, whether drug treatment helps offenders turn their lives around and whether there’s a decrease in forgeries and other crimes associated with drug use.

The law requires treatment instead of prison for people convicted of drug possession, but a judge can send the defendant to prison for failing to complete the program.

The law does not apply to people convicted of manufacturing or selling drugs.

For Stegall and his staff, the main questions now are logistical, including:

• What happens if the money runs out?

“Finances scare me,” said Douglas County probation officer Shannon Murphy.

Douglas County will receive about $30,000 from the state to hire a new probation officer, plus about $80,000 to contract with local agencies for drug assessment and treatment. That’s based on an estimate that 35 offenders will be eligible for the treatment programs between Nov. 1 and the end of June.

“I have a sense it will be more than that,” Murphy said. She said she worried about the effects on people in drug treatment if money problems kept them from finishing their programs.

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Patricia Biggs, executive director of the Kansas Sentencing Commission, said some of the money appropriated for the program has been set aside. In February, the agency will assess whether there’s a need to adjust the amounts granted to each judicial district.

• Will Douglas County’s treatment programs meet the need?

Although Douglas County has five substance-abuse treatment providers, none offers detoxification or residential drug-treatment services. Offenders who need those kinds of services typically must go to Wyandotte, Shawnee or Johnson counties.

Unless someone begins providing such services, Stegall said, the absence of those programs would make it harder for people sentenced under the law to have their needs met.

• Which drug users pay for their treatment?

The Sentencing Commission asked all of the state’s judicial districts to establish guidelines for deciding who can afford to help pay for their treatment. Stegall said he worried that would create a widely differing set of standards across the state.

Biggs, however, said those decisions probably would be left to individual judicial districts. She expects many of the people who fall under the program to be able to pay for their treatment.

“They’re on probation, so these folks are generally out there functioning in the community anyhow,” she said.