Drug treatment advocates are scrambling in the final days of the legislative session to secure money that would salvage a rehabilitation program they say saves money and lives.

The Legislature passed the Drug Offender Reform Act in 2005, creating a pilot program designed to let judges steer offenders into treatment rather than jail cells. But each year since it has been a struggle to maintain funding for the program.

The program was nearly wiped out last year, but got a late infusion of $3 million to keep it afloat another year.

Now it is again in jeopardy of being eliminated. Advocates were initially hoping to double the program, but now they're trying to at least get the $2 million it would take to sustain treatment for those currently in the program.

Tammi Tody says that, were it not for DORA, she would be "in jail or dead."

She was hooked on heroin, cocaine and Xanax. She'd been in and out of jail and had her four children taken away by the state. Now, after going through detox, she has been clean for four months, is trying to stay clean and regain custody of her children.

"I had to lose a lot to get here," she said while visiting legislators recently to advocate for DORA funding.

Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, who has championed DORA from its inception, said he is working to get the $2 million to keep the program alive, although that amount would not allow any new patients into treatment for the time being.

He said the math simply makes sense.

It costs about $30,000 a year to incarcerate a drug offender, compared to $5,000 to have someone in treatment, and it frees up prison beds. Add in that it lets those in treatment hold their jobs, keeps families together and keeps kids out of state care and it compounds the benefits, he said.

The rate that DORA users go back to drugs is only about 20 percent, compared to 70 percent without the program.

"It is showing some amazing results," he said. "It's such a no-brainer, why don't we just go for it?"

But in a tight budget year, every dollar is a fight, especially for a program like DORA that is still in its infancy.

There are about 200 people in DORA programs statewide and about 2,500 who could be eligible, said Patrick Fleming, director of Salt Lake County Substance Abuse Services. Last year, DORA had to be scaled down significantly, forcing the elimination of the program in Tooele, Cache, Box Elder and Carbon counties and in the Uinta Basin.

The hope is to sustain it through lean times, Fleming said, in hopes they can expand it once the money is available.

"It's a very innovative program," he said. "Once it goes away, it's so much harder to get it going again."