clay county commission
Dan Haglund
James O’Donnell, the superintendent of the West Central Regional Juvenile Center in Moorhead, presented his 2024 budget before the Clay County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday in Moorhead.
His new request includes a pay and job title move for two individuals who are currently considered shift leads. O’Donnell feels they should be moved up based on their job duties.
The proposed WCRJC budget for Clay County’s portion of board and care is pegged at $840,000, which has remained a basically static amount for the past five years.
O’Donnell pointed out that with increased costs and inflation; today’s dollar would equal about $1.23 in 2018.
The WCRJC also took in $1.4 million from an average of 11 non-member youths per day, but the county has been recently averaging 17. O’Donnell says he hasn’t been budgeting for 17 because that number is not guaranteed, but has become the trending norm.
“We want to be conservative in that (budget piece) so that we’re not over-selling ourselves,” O’Donnell said.
The portion of the budget considered miscellaneous revenue, the WCRJC has calculated revenues over expenditures of $1.08 million from 2022. In this, O’Donnell says some monies may be used for a body scanner, which has yet to be approved, and also $40,000 for a gym floor and ceiling tiles. This pool of money also helps members offset their costs, O’Donnell said.
“The $1.08 million, the way that works is each county based on what their percentage was from 2022 that they paid in,” said Commissioner Kevin Campbell, Dist. 4. “You’ll see that Clay County is up for 2024, that means we have a higher percentage of usage, so next go round we will see revenues over expenditures, then we will see a larger credit.”
For expenditures, O’Donnell said the biggest increase has come in the way of his department’s overtime budget, which has gone up about $40,000. He said this number is a bit skewed, as many employees must write down overtime pay on their timecards when in fact they are working a holiday, which pays time-and-a-half. Also, some difficult cases have required staff to stay beyond their scheduled times, O’Donnell said.
There shows about a $26,000 increase in salaries, and heating costs have risen from $57,000 to a requested $62,500 for 2024.
O’Donnell also explained that about $20,000 went for running legal background checks on individuals who work one-on-one with the youths within the center.
The WCRJC functions as a co-ed 55-bed secure facility, as well as a co-ed 25-bed non-secure care program. The center provides services for juveniles with behavioral, protection, dependency and delinquency issues.
The WCRJC operates under two components: the secure and non-secure programs.
The secure programs (within an 11-county area) are designed to hold offenders ages 10-19 (up to 21 on Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction (EJJ). All placements in the secure residential program are accompanied by a court order. The program is designed to focus on areas of concern that are identified by the family/legal guardian, referring agency and the resident.
The non-secure program is designed to hold juveniles ages 11-18 within three different programs. These include emergency placement, a consequence program and a 30-day evaluation program.