MT Cuts Program Funding
Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s decision to halt construction of a new Great Falls Youth Transition Center will not have a major effect on the existing program, a corrections official said. News from the Great Falls Tribune.
Steve Gibson, administrator of the Montana Department of Corrections Youth Services Division, said the agency will continue to run the program out of the rented residential home that it has used for more than a decade.
Earlier this year the Legislature appropriated $1.31 million to upgrade the prerelease-style program for juvenile offenders. The current facility on 3rd Avenue South is a converted former private home, which the state leases for $36,500 per year.
Schweitzer announced late last month that he was ordering the agency to hold off on building the new facility as part of his plan to save the state money. However, because the new building was funded through the state’s long-range building program and not the state general fund, Schweitzer needs the Legislature’s approval before the savings can be transferred to the general fund.
During the last legislative session, agency officials told lawmakers that the current building doesn’t meet local and state building regulations and that it needs to be replaced. The plan for a new facility included replacing the 3,600-square-foot existing home with a 4,600-square-foot state-owned building.
Of the $1.31 million the Legislature appropriated for the project, about $60,000 already was spent on architects hired to design the new facility.
Gibson said the department temporarily reduced the number of individuals on probation using the facility and modified the existing house to meet some of the building code concerns. Still, the new building would be a better long-term option for the program, he said.
“It’s an older residential house that obviously does not ideally meet the needs of a facility of this nature,” Gibson said. “With the new facility, we would have had such things as cameras on the outside for security (and) an alarm system for the windows. It would have been more of a residential placement center that would be better designed to meet the needs for these kids.”
The Great Falls Youth Transition Center is the only program of its kind in the state. It serves as a stop-over for troubled youth who recently were released from one of the state’s two juvenile detention facilities.
“Initially, it was for kids who it was difficult to find other placements for when they came out of either Pine Hills or Riverside (youth correctional facilities),” Gibson said. “It kind of operated in the sense of a half-way house.”
He said the center recently has served more like a “short-term revocation center.” In that capacity, the center takes in youths who have “slipped up” while in placement elsewhere, Gibson said.
“We can place them in the Great Falls Youth Transition Center for a period of time with certain sanctions, more restrictions, more intense counseling and more checking as far as (urinary analysis), etc. If they continue to progress and the other placement is still available, then we can transition them out,” Gibson said.
The program has operated in Great Falls in one form or another since 1970, Gibson said, and will continue to do so, with or without the new building.
“The program will continue,” Gibson said. “Hopefully if things become better economically, this can still go forward.”
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