TRAVIS CALLS FOR STRATEGIC CHANGE IN JUVENILE CENTER FUNDING

Sophia Travis, candidate for Monroe County Council-at-Large, today issued a call to “invert the traditional wisdom” regarding planning for a county juvenile facility and to take a new, strategic, approach in which the need, location, scope, and design of the facility are taken as given, so as to move forward with this important project.

“We’ve talked about the need for a juvenile facility for over a decade and a half now,” said Travis, “and to a person, Republican or Democrat, the conclusion has been remarkably bi-partisan: Monroe County needs its own juvenile treatment facility.  Why, then, have we done nothing but spin our wheels, spending millions on consultants who all reach the same common-sense conclusion, and tens-of-millions to ship our youths out of county -- all while going nowhere?”

Travis concluded that Monroe County is mired in “analysis paralysis,” losing the “forest through the trees” by letting arcane fiscal details, instead of a strategic big-picture, drive the agenda.

“We know that there are issues concerning federal funding, we know that some approaches will threaten that funding while others may not.  We know we’re spending millions on out-of-county treatment and we know that we can make in-county treatment more cost effective than shipping kids out.  But we can’t even get to that point because we keep haggling over tactics when we should be concentrating on strategy.  We should design what we need first and then move forward with funding it, not the other way around.” said Travis.

Travis then went on to propose design features of the treatment facility:

• An approximately $10-15 million campus setting, as opposed to an institutional setting, comprising multiple buildings and totaling approximately 60-70 beds.
• The campus divided into three functional units: treatment, shelter, and detention.
• The campus would be located in the recently purchased 80+ acre Thomson site.  Travis cited consultant’s recommendations for such a layout for its ability to physically, and safely, separate functions within the facility and to provide a nurturing environment conducive improving the conditions of our community’s at-risk youth.  “We don’t need more Justice-building compounds, “ said Travis, “government can and should build in a way that affirms its and our dignity.  We used to do that, look at the Courthouse.  It’s time to start building like that again.”
• A prohibition against taking out-of-county residents.  Travis stated, “When this idea was first floated, back in the late 80s, it was floated as a regional plan.  That’s not appropriate for Monroe County.”  Noting concerns about overcrowding, pressure to accept out-of-county transfers for revenue reasons, etc. Travis said that she did not want the county the find itself someday back in the same boat that it is in currently.  “We don’t want to wake up and find that our facility is full with out-of-county transfers.”

Citing the expiration of the Justice building’s bond, Travis noted that the county has plenty of bonding authority to build the facility but that it’s the issue of ongoing operation of the facility that keeps it from becoming a reality.  To move forward, flesh-out, and resolve those questions about operational funding, Travis proposed that the County Council conduct a model budget exercise in which:

• Department heads and the Council would operate under the assumption that the juvenile facility was in-place and operational.
• Costs currently incurred as a result of not having a juvenile facility were deleted from the budget.

Travis said that, if elected, she would bring forward a request to conduct the model budget session in the late spring of 2005.  She continued: “We spend over $10 million a year on youth and children’s services, much of it on out-of-county costs.  We already know that, buried in there, we have the money to stop outsourcing and run an in-county youth treatment center.  Now we need to let our experts, the department heads and their staffs, tell us how to make this work.  A public budget exercise, done just as if we were deciding a formal budget, is the right way to do that.”

Travis said the results of the model budget would be incorporated in the real 2006 budget, thus establishing permanent funding for the facility.

“For once we have an opportunity for a proactive County Council, one that takes the initiative instead of just reacting to what comes down from the Commissioners and up from the department heads.” she said.

“After all these years, this can be the County Council that gets this done.”