Acadiana juvenile detention center, APSO may yet feel state budget axe

A worst-case budget scenario proposal once again puts funding for the Acadiana Center for Youth juvenile detention facility in jeopardy. Avoyelles and other parishes that house state prisoners in their parish jails would also be required to absorb one month of inmate housing under that proposal.

It was rumored the funding for the Bunkie juvenile detention center had already been cut by Gov. Jon Bel Edwards.

“No, the funding is there but it comes later in the year,” state Sen. Eric LaFleur said. “It is still on track to open.”

The reduction in inmate housing payments “would be about a $350,000 hit to our budget and could put us in the red,” Sheriff Doug Anderson noted.

The “deficit avoidance plan” will not be put into effect “unless and until a deficit occurs,” Planning and Budget Director Barry R. Dusse wrote in a memo. “At this time, the budgets of the agencies involved will not be reduced.”

Dusse said the targeted funds are not to be spent until the 2017 fiscal year actual budget is known Oct. 15 and until after the Revenue Estimating Conference meets to revise the 2018 budget forecast.

After those steps have been cleared, the agencies will be notified that they may “expend the funds in accordance with budget authority,” he added. Dusse said that if there is a deficit in the 2017 budget or a projected deficit for the 2018 budget, “budgets will be reduced in accordance with the law. If there is no deficit in either year, the agencies will be authorized to spend the dollars as appropriated.”

MAJOR REDUCTIONS

The bulk of the cuts in the “deficit avoidance plan” fall on health care, with over $20 million, higher education with $12.7 million and local sheriffs, who would lose more than $14 million in inmate housing payments.

The plan calls for taking over $5.45 million from the allocation to the Bunkie center, leaving almost $1.75 million to purchase supplies and furniture in the event the site is required to serve as a temporary shelter for youth in the event of an emergency.

With over $52 million of the emergency reductions in those four areas, the rest of state government splits the remaining $8 million. Of those, the largest would be $1.7 million in State Police, with $1.5 million being in Louisiana Wireless Information Network tower site maintenance which would prevent extending the communication network. It has been allocated $8.4 million for the network.

The Department of Revenue would be cut by almost $1.7 million by not filling 20 of its 69 vacant positions. Office of Elderly Affairs would be cut by $761,000 and the Division of Administration would reduce its budget by $681,500.

Most of the remaining reductions would be achieved by not filling vacant positions.

Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne will be required to provide a monthly “deficit avoidance plan” report to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget.