If they care about Arkansas' future, lawmakers shouldn't be stingy with the state budget when choosing whether to pay for a detailed reform plan for the beleaguered state Youth Services Division, key House and Senate members said Thursday.
If no additional money is spent on treatment, the state can expect a $20,000 a year bill for each youth who later ends up in prison, said state Sen. Mike Ross, D-Prescott.
"The Legislature has to make difficult choices to turn [youth criminals] into productive citizens," said Ross, Senate chairman for the Committee on Children and Youth. "We can make a difference in young people's lives for a fraction of the cost to warehouse them in prison."
Ross' committee and the House Committee on Aging, Children and Youth will meet March 15 to discuss division Director Russell Rigsby's six-pronged plan for new programs, better staff pay and modern facilities.
Rigsby estimates his plan will cost an additional $9.9 million each year. The division's annual budget is currently $48 million.
Rep. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, who chairs the House committee, likened efforts at finding more money for the division in the 1999 regular session to "diving into the bottom of the couch."
"It would be nice if the governor would say it -- that this is a priority," Madison said. "These are the children we should be saving. If we don't make the investment in saving them, we're just going to catch it later."
Gov. Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that he fully endorsed Rigsby's proposals, but he wasn't sure he would go along with the price tag. He said he hasn't seen funding details and would leave appropriations to the Legislature.
One possible funding source, Madison said, could be the Budget Stabilization Trust Fund. That fund helps state departments pay their bills. The departments refund the money once receipts come in.
But the state exempts the Department of Correction from refunding its appropriation because of the crops inmates produce on prison farms. "That's $7.2 [million] that we just write off every year," Madison said. "You can pay it to DYS or you can pay it to Correction."
Ross and Madison co-chaired committee meetings after a 1998 Democrat-Gazette series detailing multiple problems at the division, including abuse of inmates. The committees issued a report finding fault with Huckabee and others for not heading off problems in the division swiftly enough. Huckabee contended that he took action as soon as he learned there were problems.
"Mental abuse and sexual abuse shouldn't have happened," Ross said. "I shouldn't tolerate it and we shouldn't tolerate it."
The vice chairman of Madison's committee, Rep. Sandra Rodgers, D-Hope, praised Rigsby's plan, especially the goal of updating facilities and raising pay. But she said low pay and high turnover is a problem throughout state government.
"Everybody else is asking for additional money, too," Rodgers said. "I personally don't think putting more money into programs is always the answer. You can keep adding more money and adding more money, but where does it get us?"
For Sen. Mike Everett, D-Marked Tree, vice chairman of Ross' committee, the situation is critical. If Rigsby's plan isn't adopted, the state is risking a potentially devastating lawsuit, he said.
"I have a great deal of confidence in Russell Rigsby," Everett said. "I won't say I'll rubber-stamp everything he does, but he's a man with great confidence and great concern. For anybody to step into the position of DYS [director] is like jumping into a bucket of soup."
To help convince legislators in the 2001 session to pay for his plan, Rigsby said he's working to detail each budget figure, something he doesn't have done yet. He said he's also working to find more avenues to get federal grants.
He said he's not demanding $9.9 million a year initially. Instead, he wants the state to gradually increase his funding. "What I'm going for is one bite," Rigsby said. "We'll continue to bite it off."
That five-year plan, which began this year, includes:
- Reshaping five regional youth camps around the state into comprehensive treatment complexes at Alexander, Harrisburg, Lewisville, Mansfield and Dermott.
- Improving living quarters.
- Reorganizing staff, hiring better workers and paying them better.
- Creating a major complex at Dermott to separate older and more violent offenders from the general population and to house 18- to 21-year-olds.
- Hiring 14 staff monitors to travel to every facility and evaluate the care of children each month.
- Add hundreds of children to treatment programs.