MILTON — Santa Rosa County commissioners will have one budget item clear by this month’s budget workshop: the Department of Juvenile Justice’s shared costs with the state of Florida.
Whether it means a greater or smaller financial burden to the county is unknown. But Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott signed into law Senate Bill 1322, revising the cost-sharing relationship between the DJJ and Florida’s counties for juvenile detention costs.
In 2004, the Florida legislature required counties to share in the costs for juvenile secure detention, at which point non-fiscally constrained counties became the primary revenue source for the juvenile detention facilities.
The DJJ went a step further in fiscal year 2008 to 2009, changing how counties were billed for detention without a change in statute. The sudden additional thousands of days, for which counties were responsible, led to several filing suit against the DJJ.
Santa Rosa County overpaid the state $1,373,078.62, according to the Florida Association of Counties’ analysis.
Beginning in fiscal year 2017-18, juvenile detention costs will be split 50-50, based on actual expenditures, and the percentage of detention days used for that county’s juveniles in the most recently completed 12-month period, the governor’s office stated. Costs incurred by fiscally-constrained counties will be the state’s responsibility.
What’s the county’s reaction?
“Certainly we're glad that the decision is one where they recognized they made some erroneous estimates in the past, and that they were subjecting counties to uncertainty year to year on how to calculate and assess fess,” Santa Rosa County Administrator Tony Gomillion said.
“We feel like, going forward, we’ll be in a place of certainty.”
Gomillion said this fiscal year’s DJJ costs amounted to $885,000. “At this point, I’m skeptical to say that number will go down,” he said.
The rule-making process for this change is ongoing, but should be complete by the county’s budget workshop this month, Gomillion said.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Santa Rosa County ‘glad’ for Scott’s decision to reduce DJJ costs