County staff told commissioners on Sept. 15 that state-level changes and budget reductions had cut funding for BECCA-related juvenile services and that counties are grappling with program and budget impacts.

A staff presenter described the BECCA-related funding cut as large: “We had 14,000,000 statewide for the biennium, and they cut it to 4,” the presenter said, noting that the reduction — which staff characterized as about a 71% cut — has already affected local programs. Staff said the state statute changes in prior years removed the ability to use secure detention as a routine sanction for truancy and youth-at-risk filings; combined with funding cuts, counties and schools have had to seek alternative interventions, including community engagement boards and pre-court interventions.

Separately, juvenile-probation staff described a block grant the county receives from the state to support probation services. The county received a small increase in the block grant this year and plans to pilot an Employment and Education Training (EET) program using some of the additional funds. The EET pilot will begin with two moderate-to-high-risk youth identified on probationers’ caseloads and focus on job readiness, training, and employer linkages. Staff emphasized that block-grant funds are restricted to probation and juvenile-offender populations and cannot be used to backfill unrelated programs.

Staff asked the board to place several long-standing state contracts on the regular agenda, including the BECCA/non-offender support contract (the work session packet reflected the reduced funding). Commissioners and staff discussed the difficulty of recruiting and retaining volunteers and staff for juvenile services as well as the practical limits of enforcement when statutory sanctions were removed.

Next steps: staff will place the BECCA contract and probation-block-grant-related items on the regular meeting agenda for formal action and will continue to monitor state budget developments and county impacts.