Bay County Juvenile Home may try intensive treatment program offered by a Pennsylvania health care service.
Bay Futures Contract, Early Tax Collection on County Commission Agenda
Juvenile Home Pilot Project for Substance Abuse Treatment Also Eyed
July 3, 2004
By: Dave Rogers
Early collection of property taxes is one of several key items on the agenda for the Bay County Commission on Tuesday.
Commissioners will consider a proposal from Gov. Jennifer Granholm to move up county tax collection from December to July.
The early collection is designed to provide a temporary alternative to $183 million in state revenue sharing. The shift will give the state extra funds to deal with a tight budget.
The early collection will be phasedin over three years and will allow the state to create a fund from which counties will draw to recoup the same amount of revenue sharing they have lost through state cuts. Counties will draw from the fund for at least five years, some as long as 22 years. After the counties have received amounts equal to what they would have received under revenue sharing, the state payments will be resumed.
The governor will appoint a task force on county, city, village and township financing to identify potential changes to the financing structure of county government.
County commissioners also will consider a three year contract with Bay Futures, Inc., a local public-private cooperative economic development agency, providing $50,000 per year funding through 2005.
The commission also will review proposed county participation in the Michigan Regional Skills Alliances, which are locally-managed partnerships to address industry-common workforce issues. MRSAs aim to resolve worker shortages, skill shortages, training mismatches, employee recruitment and retention and organizational design issues. Requests for proposals for the program are due July 9.
Another decision involves a two month pilot program for an intensive substance abuse treatment program at the Bay County Juvenile Home.
Kairos Health Systems,Mechanicsburg, PA, proposes a two-month pilot treatment program in an effort to more fully utilize the juvenile detention facility. Recently thenumber of juveniles housed at the facility, especially those from other counties, has fallen, threatening the financial stability of the detention home. Construction of a new facility by Midland County and a drop in juvenile crime are among factors that have affected the caseload at the detention center, officials have indicated.
"The volume of utilization by other counties combined with the effectiveness of the model will determine the future of the program," the project proposal states.
Kairos is offering treatment to juveniles from all counties at a rate of $118 per day. The length of stay is based on the youth's progress in treatment, with a minimum stay of 30 days. Treatment involves a three hour intensive group therapy(IGT) process Monday through Friday. In addition, a two hour focus group is conducted weekdays. The IGT model is a therapeutic process conducted by master's level clinicians. The focus group is a skill development process.
Kairos now operates a 72-bed facility for adolescent substance abuse offenders in Bridgeport and the organization is accredited by the Michigan Department of Community Health and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.###