Juvenile detention costs targeted

TALLAHASSEE — After years of legislative and court battles, a Florida Senate panel on Thursday approved a bill aimed at resolving a dispute about how juvenile-detention costs are shared between the state and counties.

The Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Subcommittee unanimously approved a measure SB 1322), fifiled by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, that would create a new cost-sharing formula while putting past quarrels to rest.

“This bill seeks to change the statutory billing model for juvenile detention costs that has been the subject of litigation for the past 10 years,” Latvala said.

The measure would divide the cost of detaining young offffffffffffenders equally between the state Department of Juvenile Justice and county governments — a 50-50 split that would replace a formula currently requiring the counties to pay 57 percent and the state to pay 43 percent.

It also would eliminate a billing process in which counties pay their annual estimated costs in advance. Under Latvala’s plan, counties would pay their actual costs for the previous year.

Latvala said the affffffffffffected counties would save roughly $12 million in the fifirst fifiscal year.

The dispute affffffffffffects 38 counties, including Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties. The remaining 29 counties are considered “fifiscally constrained” and aren’t required to contribute. Many counties have taken disputes to the state Division of Administrative Hearings, which has ruled several times in the counties’ favor.

The bill would require the counties to pay a total of $42.5 million for detention costs during the 201617 fifiscal year. The state would pay the rest. After that, the state and counties would split the costs evenly.

Latvala said the affffffffffffected counties — “many of which have active court cases going on against the state now” — would commit to the bill with the understanding that all their litigation would be dropped. He also said 21 counties have signed offffffffffff, with two more — Collier and Bay — expected to do so in a matter of days.

“We don’t have all the letters in, but I think we’ve got general agreement from all the counties,” Latvala said.

Senators warned the deal would be offff otherwise.