MITCHELL, S.D. - Officials are in the early stages of discussion on a deal that could reduce the daily rate that Davison County pays to house juveniles in Minnehaha County.
"There are several different options on the table," said John Claggett, Davison County commissioner.
Todd Cheever, director of the Minnehaha County Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Sioux Falls, said center and county administrators are looking at options that would expand the center's capacity.
The center, originally built in 1969 and expanded in the 1990s, has a capacity for 61 juvenile prisoners, although that capacity has been exceeded 34 times since Jan. 1, 2002, including two occasions in November 2006 when the facility housed 76 prisoners.
After paying for a $20,000 examination of the current facility, administrators are considering whether to add on to the facility or construct a new one.
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"We're definitely in the preliminary stages," Cheever said.
The center has existing agreements with 14 counties -- including Bon Homme, Charles Mix, Hanson, Hutchinson and McCook, but not Davison -- in which the participating counties pay an annual fee based on the number of children residing in each county. The fee goes toward the debt on the center's $2.5 million bond for the 1990s expansion. In exchange for contributing to the construction of the facility, the counties receive a reduced daily rate to house juvenile prisoners at the facility.
Davison County pays $215 a day to house a juvenile at the center, while the 14 counties that have an agreement with Minnehaha County pay $140 per day.
The latter number doesn't cover the cost -- estimated to be $180 per day in 2009 -- of housing a juvenile at the facility, Cheever said, but it's part of an agreement that allowed the 1990s expansion to occur.
Claggett said he's interested to see if entering into an agreement with Minnehaha County could help Davison County save money.
But Claggett said he's also open to the idea of constructing a juvenile facility in Mitchell.
"We're looking at how we're going to house our juveniles in the future," Claggett said. "Personally, I think (constructing a facility in Mitchell) is an option."
Davison County juvenile prisoners are currently transported anywhere from Aberdeen to Nebraska. It's a process that can get expensive, Claggett said, because "everything is long distance."
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Teaming with Minnehaha's center could also make it easier on area families who wish to visit their incarcerated relatives, Claggett said.
If the numbers that will eventually surface look favorable for Davison County, Claggett said an agreement between the two counties could come as a result.
"We still haven't finalized a vision, but we'll be getting more updates on that right now," Claggett said. "We know that incarceration costs a chunk of dough, no matter what you do."
