Blog note: this article references a grand jury report.
The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors at its board meeting earlier this week accepted a report from the Juvenile Hall Ad Hoc Committee that recommended the county keep open Mendocino County juvenile hall.
The board also approved a resolution directing county staff to prepare future county budgets with funding to operate juvenile hall and to continue looking for ways to fully utilize the juvenile hall campus. The resolution is a positive sign for the continued operation of juvenile hall and comes after discussions and consideration earlier this year that the board might decide to close the facility to save money.
One of the turning points in deciding if juvenile hall should close was a Mendocino County grand jury report earlier this year that recommended that the county keep the Juvenile Detention Facility on Low Gap Road open. The grand jury worried about the long-term effects of the closing and the troubling sign that the proposed closing prioritized cutting costs rather than helping kids in need.
The grand jury found that juvenile hall closing would increase cost and hassles for the county. Mendocino County juveniles would have to go to a neighboring county’s juvenile hall, incurring extra costs and making it more difficult for Mendocino County juvenile hall staff, court-appointed attorneys and families.
Supervisor Georgeanne Croskey, a member of the Juvenile Hall Ad Hoc Committee alongside Supervisor Dan Gjerde, said it makes sense for the juvenile hall to remain open at this time.
“Given the cost-cutting of the juvenile hall and for a variety of reasons we all agreed that the best course of action was to keep the juvenile hall open as long as the funding and need was there,” Croskey said.
The cost of possibly reopening and the expense of moving to Sonoma County were factors in the ad hoc committee’s decision to recommend keeping juvenile hall open, but the board still wants to figure out ways to make juvenile hall more financially feasible for the county.
“What we need to do next though is, if we decide to keep it open is how do we continue to make that budget something that is doable for the county. We’re not ever going to be making money on juvenile hall, and that’s not the point,” Croskey said. “But we can’t keep spending as much money as we are for just the 12 to 14 kids, so we need to try and repurpose juvenile hall that we are currently not using.”
Mendocino County Chief Probation Officer Izen Locatelli said that while the juvenile hall is $29,000 over budget in initial budget reports, that is mostly due to staff turnover and resignations. Fewer people working in juvenile hall means more overtime and costs for the county.
The board also passed a resolution that disbanded the Juvenile Hall Ad Hoc Committee but with the intention of creating a new ad hoc committee in the coming months for further discussion on how to make juvenile hall more cost-effective. Gjerde said that having a new juvenile hall ad hoc committee would help juvenile hall staff save money.
“It may well be appropriate for the board next year when it’s looking at committee assignments and forming ad hoc committees, we will have two new board members, to possibly create an ad hoc to look not at closing the hall but at still working with staff who are already looking at other ways to more fully utilize the portion of the hall that is not used and also just bring in additional funds,” Gjerde said.
November 15, 2018
The Ukiah Daily Journal
By Curtis Driscoll
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