KS- Kan. juvenile offenders reassigned

12-17-2008 Kansas:

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- The Juvenile Justice Authority hopes to covert the closed Atchison Juvenile Correctional Facility into a group home for youths.

JJA Commissioner J. Russell Jennings said Tuesday bids are being prepared for making the facility a 56-bed group home operated by a private company. He said there are about 420 youths in group home placements and there's generally about 40 on the waiting list.

"This would get them out of detention centers quicker and into group homes," Jennings said.

He said group homes are for youth convicted of a crime who don't belong in a correctional facility but shouldn't remain at home.

The Atchison facility closed Dec. 8 as part of the agency's effort to cut at least $1.5 million from its current state general fund budget of $73.2 million, as part of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' effort to trim spending in the current budget.

Legislators and Sebelius are faced with the task of dealing with a projected shortfall of $141 million in the current $6.4 billion general fund budget.

Jennings said the 28 boys from Atchison have been placed at Topeka and Larned facilities. Closing the facility eliminated 67 jobs.

The Atchison facility had an annual budget of $5.6 million, of which which half already had been spent. The remainder goes toward savings plus paying for more youths at the other facilities and maintaining the Atchison facility.

With the Atchison closure, the Topeka facility has 202 boys and a capacity for 441; Larned has 112 and a capcity for 152. Nineteen girls are at the Beloit facility.

Jennings said the agency gave up $209,000 as a cash match for a federal grant for treatment and rehabiliation of teenage sex offenders. The federal share is $880,000.

The commissioner said he's been talking to federal officials about getting the grant without the state cash match or doing an in-kind match. He said 40 percent of those in juvenile facilities are sex offenders. ..News Source.. by CARL MANNING