Youth programs help save Linn County nearly $600,000, director says

Efforts to keep young Linn County residents out of jail are showing up on the bottom line.

Linn County Community Services, which manages  the county's juvenile detention center and other programs for at-risk youth, is running a nearly $600,000 budget surplus with just over a month left in the fiscal year. More than $200,000 came from savings in youth shelter services, Community Services Director John Brandt said.

"We think it could be that there are just fewer children going into shelter, but it also could be some of the alternative services we have could be serving that population," Brandt said.

Under a program started in 2009, the county also assigns a counselor to juvenile offenders within 24 hours of their arrest. The counselor closely supervises the offenders and works with their families to keep them out of jail.

Sheltering youth has cost $96,000 under budget, said Sue Novak, community services' budget management director. A combination of detention alternatives and fees for holding juveniles from Johnson and other counties boosted the detention center's budget by about $135,000.

The county has also saved:

• $160,000 through lower costs in substance abuse programs.
• $29,000 due to fewer child in need of assistance (CHINA) court cases.
• $132,000 in administrative costs related to youth shelter programs.

Brandt plans to return just under $99,000 of the savings back to the county's general fund. He and Novak reviewed their plans for the rest of the surplus with supervisors, who will act on the rec0mmendations at Wednesday's formal session:

• $5,000 for wall hangings and other interior art at the new Community Services Building.
• $16,000 to fully fund Community Empowerment programs in the fiscal year starting July 1.
• $60,000 for an effort to reduce child neglect in the county by 15 percentover three years.
• $405,000 for new computer software, software maintenance, and a project manager as the department moves from a mainframe to a web-based system.

Unlike services for mental health and the developmentally disabled, where the county has spent the year trying to meet a $5.3 million shortfall, Community Services' budget comes from the county's general fund. The department also operates home health and child development programs.

The county combined its youth service and child development programs under Community Services last year.