Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Five-Year Improvement Plan Discussion Held

The Senate Committee on Children and Youth last week discussed proposals to improve the state Youth Services Division, which operates facilities for adolescents who have been in trouble with the law.

The director of the division provided details of a five-year improvement plan. Legislators and state officials said they liked many of the ideas, but they expressed doubts about being able to find money in the state budget to pay for all the improvements.

An initial estimate is that the plan will cost an additional $9.9 million a year, on top of the division's current annual budget of $48 million. The director noted that he is not trying to get the entire $9.9 million at once, rather he wants to gradually increase funding as the division gradually implements the improvement plan.

The five-year plan would restructure the youth wilderness camps into comprehensive treatment complexes at Alexander, Harrisburg, Lewisville, Mansfield and Dermott. It also would renovate the living quarters at those facilities.

The plan includes a reorganization of staff. A very important provision is that it calls for hiring better workers and paying them higher wages. High employee turnover rates have hampered efforts to improve services at the Youth Services Division.

The plan calls for building a complex at Dermott in which older, violent offenders would be separated from other juveniles. The complex also would hold juvenile offenders between the ages of 18 and 21. For years Arkansas had no detention facility for juvenile offenders over the age of 18, therefore they were released after their 18th birthday.

The improvement plan would increase to 14 the staff of monitors who would travel across the state inspecting all juvenile facilities and evaluating treatment programs. Finally, the plan would expand and enhance treatment programs so that they could accept hundreds of additional youths who otherwise would receive not help.

The General Assembly will consider the division's request for budget increases in the legislative session of 2001. Budget hearings, in preparation for the legislative session, will begin in the fall of this year.

The chairman of the Committee on Children and Youth said funds allocated to youth services now would be a wise investment if effective treatment programs keep teenagers out of trouble and, therefore, out of prison.

The costs of operating state prisons rise continually, and currently the Correction Department spends about $20,000 per inmate per year to house them securely. The prison population in Arkansas is about 11,000 inmates.

The director of the Youth Services Division will present more detailed budget requests at future meetings of the Senate Committee on Children and Youth. He also said he would actively seek federal grants to help pay for improvements.

Budget Cuts at UAMS

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock, the state's only medical school and teaching hospital, expects to fall short of its budget by about $17 million this year, the chancellor said. UAMS has reduced staff by about 20 people and is not filling any vacancies. Also, the school is spending from its reserve fund to pay expenses.

Many of the budget problems are a result of the federal Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which reduced federal government payments to hospitals.