The county board of commissioners approved a new agreement between the Cass County Sheriff’s Office and the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians Tribal Police Department last week, which will allow officers in both departments to be cross deputized.

The deal was passed in a unanimous vote by the seven commissioners during their meeting Thursday, after Sheriff Joseph Underwood presented the plan to them during the committee of the whole session held earlier in the evening.

The new agreement, which will last for 10 years, includes provisions that allow both county deputies and tribal police to have police powers outside their established jurisdictions. Per the agreement, officers with the sheriff’s office must undergo training to familiarize themselves with the band’s laws and enforcement procedures.

County officials last approved an agreement between their offices and the Pokagon Band 10 years ago. The agreement presented in front of the commissioners Thursday was slightly modified version of the previous one, Underwood said.

“This is the same agreement they’ve signed with Berrien County and Van Buren County,” Underwood said.

The contract does slightly deviate from ones singed with those two counties, as the agreement calls for both parties to maintain $5 million insurance coverage against claims related to the terms; in the band’s agreement with the other counties that amount is $10 million, Underwood said.

The commissioners also voted to approve the fiscal year 2015 budget for the county’s child care services department. The proposed $1.28 million budget was mostly unchanged from last year’s total, down around $1,177, said Judge Susan Dobrich, who presented it to the commissioners that evening.

“We made some changes in the institutional care,” she said. “DHS portions of the budget is the same, but we switched a line item, moving $10,000 from institutional living to independent care.”