During the council’s public-hearing period on Aug. 5, Lee County youth-court officials urged the council to fund expanded truancy services and to seed a new family intervention court to address substance-use dynamics in child-protection cases.

Judge Steven Spencer, the county’s truancy judge, told the council he oversees cases where children have 12 or more unexcused absences and described the workload: “For instance, in Lee County alone, we have 14,500 kids approximately. Tupelo High School alone last year had over 500 kids that are technically truant.” He said triage and individual hearings are time-consuming — “each hearing… takes anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes” — and stressed the need for additional counseling staff to reach the root causes of absence, including learning disabilities and unmet needs at home. Spencer said the court previously “asked for 37,000” and stated, “We’re asking for $50,000 this year.”

Judge Bevel asked the council to provide a one-time $50,000 seed grant to hire a director for a proposed family intervention court (a treatment court) that would focus on cases with substance-use dynamics. She said the program would pursue state opioid-settlement proceeds and other matches and that North Mississippi Medical Center’s neuroscience department will partner as the court’s medical provider. She described the funding as a one-time, seed investment to leverage additional funds and matches.

Why it matters: both requests are for services that operate upstream of criminal cases and child-welfare interventions. Truancy officers and a family intervention court can change how the justice system engages families, but both depend on staff, sustained funding and external matches.

No formal council appropriation for either request was recorded during the meeting. Judges said they will approach the county and state grant sources as well; Judge Bevel said she plans to apply for state opioid-settlement funds and that city seed money would strengthen matching applications.

Speakers at the hearing emphasized operational details. Spencer described a truancy counselor’s role: meeting one-on-one with students, helping secure tutoring or IEP evaluations, and coordinating with school districts. He estimated that roughly half of truancy-related cases have a learning-disability component and said many delinquency cases have prior truancy histories. Bevel said about 75 percent of CPS cases her court sees have a substance-abuse dynamic and that the family intervention court would prioritize treatment and coordinated services.

The council did not make a decision on the funding requests at the Aug. 5 meeting; judges asked the council to consider one-time support that could unlock additional grant funds.