Generally, unlike adult offenders, when a juvenile offender is sent to detention by a state court judge, a county is expected to pick up the tab. This has led to huge juvenile detention bills for many counties around the state. The state has dramatically stepped up its collection efforts by tying property tax relief subsidies to repayment of the juvenile detention bills. Those subsidies were enacted to help cushion the effect of restructuring on the state’s taxpayers. (Note, the state doesn’t allow a set off for debts the state might owe the county. In particular, I’m thinking of fees for adult detention owed by the state to the county. When the Indiana Dept. of Correction houses its inmates in the county jails, the state is supposed to pay the county. However, the fact that the state owes a county as much in adult detention fees as the county owes the state in juvenile detention fees does not matter to the state when it threatens to cut off property tax subsidies to the county.
Now, the Indy Star is reporting Indy sues state over cost of locking up kids. Basically, faced with $60 million in juvenile detention debt to the state, Marion County is saying that charging the county for juvenile detention is unconstitutional.
David Bottorff, executive director of the Association of Indiana Counties, said juvenile prisoners are just as much a state obligation as adult prisoners. Indiana pays the entire cost to imprison adults.
Counties have little control over how many children are sent to state facilities or how much is spent on them once they arrive. Juvenile court judges sentence offenders and the Department of Correction oversees their stay.
Now, Bottorff said, the state is threatening to withhold tax subsidies unless it gets its way.
“Property tax relief was never meant to be a punishment for the counties,” he said. “It was meant to help. Now, it’s become something to hold over the heads of the local units to get them to do something they don’t want to do.”
Other counties may risk not paying their bills until the lawsuit is settled, Bottorff said. Marion County’s decision to withhold payments might create a domino effect that could put a hole in the state budget, he said.
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In the lawsuit, Indianapolis argued the state constitution requires the General Assembly to provide for “the correction and reformation of juvenile offenders.” The city’s lawyers said that means the state must pay the cost.
For its part, the State simply says its enforcing a valid law. But, this has the potential for being an interesting suit. The Indiana Constitution says, says, “The General Assembly shall provide institutions for the correction and reformation of juvenile offenders.” Furthermore, all trial court judges are state –not county– officials. (Try suing a state court judge in federal court, wrestle with 11th Amendment related motions, and you’ll see what I mean.) So when a trial court judge puts a juvenile in detention, essentially, you have a state official incurring a bill payable by the county for a service the Constitution suggests should be provided by the General Assembly. So, while Marion County may very well lose the case, it shouldn’t get laughed out of court.
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