Idaho juvenile corrections requests funding for radios, substance-use treatment as youth mental-health needs rise

Department of Juvenile Corrections Director Ashley Dowell told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Feb. 18 that the department is seeing growing mental-health needs among youths in custody and has brought several budget requests to reflect that trend.

The requests to the committee included a $380,000 one-time purchase from the Juvenile Corrections Endowment Income Fund to replace and program radios with a “man down” feature across the Lewiston, Nampa and St. Anthony facilities; a $300,000 ongoing general-fund request to cover increased costs for residential substance-use-disorder (SUD) treatment; $145,100 in replacement-item requests from dedicated funds; a $232,500 request for recommended IT hardware replacement; and a net-zero reallocation of $675,100 moving personnel costs to operating and reducing seven FTP positions tied to consolidating IT jobs with the Office of Information Technology Services.

The SUD request responds to a rise in per-day and per-stay costs for residential treatment. Budget analyst Noah Peterson told the committee the daily cost doubled from about $198 in 2021 to $399 in August 2021, and the average length of stay increased from…