Waukesha County considers closing girls detention unit
Waukesha - Waukesha County would close its secure detention unit for girls next year and contract with Washington County for the service under a proposal outlined Friday by Health and Human Services Director Peter Schuler.
The estimated $200,000 saving would be used to fill other gaps in the department's budget, including replenishing a fund that pays for services aimed at keeping youth from more expensive incarceration or out-of-home placements, Schuler said.
The proposal will be included in County Executive Dan Vrakas' 2012 budget proposal, which he will release Tuesday. The Health and Human Services Committee will take up the budget Thursday.
A study group had been working since January to find efficiencies in the 36-bed Juvenile Center, which in recent years has operated far below capacity. It had not reached a conclusion, despite a May deadline, and Vrakas' plan effectively ends the committee's job.
"Our job is at an end," Corporation Counsel Tom Farley, who chaired the group, told members Friday.
The Juvenile Center houses both boys and girls, with a capacity for 18 children in shelter care - typically runaways or uncontrollable juveniles who aren't accused of a crime - and 18 youths behind locked doors. In the past two years, the facility, at 521 Riverview Ave. at the courthouse complex in Waukesha, averaged about five in shelter care and four or fewer in secure detention.
On Friday, there were no juveniles in the locked wing, according to Mike Sturdevant, center coordinator. For the first eight months of this year, 25 girls were held in secure detention, with an average stay of just under four days, he said.
In a letter informing the Juvenile Center Study Committee of the plan, Schuler said the state's 2011-'13 budget "was not kind" to youth aid funding for counties. Waukesha County's allocation was cut by $430,000, Schuler said.
"This is a significant loss, and we are concerned that after 2013, we may not see those dollars restored while our costs to continue our operations will increase even at moderate rates," he said. He predicted the department's budget next year would be even more challenging, requiring more ways to find savings.
Details of how the contracting works is still being developed, but Sturdevant said local police departments who arrest youths must still bring them to the Waukesha County Juvenile Center for face-to-face evaluation, as required by code. After that "intake," the girls would be transported to Washington County's facility. Boys would continue to be held at the Waukesha center.
Closing of the girls' secure unit would result in eliminating the equivalent of 3.7 staff positions, Sturdevant said.
Plan criticized
The closing plan immediately had some critics.
Waukesha County Board Supervisor Janel Brandtjen, chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, said Friday she disagrees with Vrakas' proposal and said the budget savings would be eclipsed by other costs to the community.
"I do not see cost savings in warehousing teenage girls in Washington County," she said. "The county has spent the time to identify, apprehend and remove these girls, and transporting young women comes with a host of issues, none cost-effective. Waukesha has a 70% success rate in juvenile rehabilitation. I think that the savings pales in comparison to the safety of the community, and the money is better spent in family intervention."
Dennis Farrell, a former county supervisor, current Menomonee Falls Village Board trustee and chairman of the county's advisory Health and Human Services Board, said he was concerned what the plan meant for local law enforcement. They'd still have to bring girls they've taken into custody to the Waukesha County center for evaluation, and then transport them to the Washington County facility in West Bend, about 80 miles round trip from Waukesha, he said.
"It's not saving if we're passing expenses on to local communities," he said.
Later Friday, Director of Administration Norm Cummings said incorrect information had been given at the meeting and that the $200,000 budget saving assumes the county will be providing transportation of girls to West Bend.
Waukesha County opened the Juvenile Center as the result of a consent degree that ended a 1980s federal lawsuit over the county's incarceration of juveniles in jail.
Schuler said the decision to contract with Washington County was made because of their like-mindedness with Waukesha County.
"They run good programs, solid programs," he said. "We know them well and we're linked with them in other programs."
Ultimately the County Board will have a crack at the plan, with adoption of a 2012 budget set for November.
