Juvenile center now in hands of consultant

The Cape Girardeau County Commission has removed the weight of a controversial decision from its shoulders and placed it on the shoulders of a Chicago consulting firm.

This decision marks the latest round in the decision-making process over whether the 32nd Judicial Circuit needs a new juvenile center to house children and teens having trouble with the law.

At issue is whether the new center, originally slated to be constructed on Progress Street property purchased by the commission in Cape Girardeau, should be a large $4.3 million facility, a bare-bones $2 million project or not built at all. Some commissioners have indicated the existing facility on Merriwether Street is adequate.

Last September, the county commission halted progress on the new juvenile center, citing cost issues. Nine months later, what will best meet the judicial circuit's needs continues to be disputed by county commissioners on one side and judges and juvenile officials on the other.

The discussions and negotiations have dragged on for so long that the other two counties in the judicial circuit -- Perry and Bollinger -- have dropped their financial support for the juvenile center, preferring to send their problem juveniles to other counties' juvenile centers on a contract basis.

The Missouri Judicial Finance Commission still hasn't issued a ruling on how much the Cape Girardeau County Commission must allocate for juvenile department operations, a figure that would likely affect the county commission's thinking about construction of a new juvenile center. The seven-member Judicial Finance Commission is appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court and includes three county commissioners from around the state, three circuit judges and an appeals court judge. The Cape Girardeau County matter has been before the group since December.

It is against this backdrop that the county commission turned last week to Huskey and Associates, a Chicago consulting firm that specializes in juvenile detention planning.

The study will cost $61,000. In return, the consulting firm will take data provided by juvenile authorities, analyze them and put them into a report by October. That report also will include future bed-space needs and a 10-year plan for juvenile operations.

The judges and commissioners could have requested that data from juvenile officials and analyzed it themselves at no cost to taxpayers. They could have reviewed the last 10 years of juvenile operations and made projections for the next 10 years.

And the commissioners could have waited for direction from the Missouri Judicial Finance Commission. That ruling would go a long way toward helping them make a decision.

But those are not the options the commissioners have chosen to take. Commissioner Larry Bock was the only dissenting vote on the matter of whether to hire the consultant. "I think we are big enough boys to make our own decisions," he said.

At this point, taxpayers can only hope the commission gets its $61,000 worth.