Despite the Legislature’s failure to pass broad, major changes in juvenile rehabilitation policy, state leaders hope a fiscal bump will give the system a leg up as it deals with an ongoing overcrowding crisis.
While other services were slashed in a tight budget year as the state faces an estimated shortfall of $16 billion over the next four years, the juvenile rehabilitation budget increased nearly 20% from the last biennium. The budget has not yet been signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson, who could veto it.
Administrators of the state-run juvenile rehabilitation system — which operates separately from county juvenile jails that detain youth before they’re processed by the courts or for short stays — went into this session hoping legislators would pass laws to address overcrowding issues that came to a head last summer. The Green Hill School in Chehalis has been particularly beset by a larger population than the facility is equipped to handle. The medium-maximum youth prison, where young people who have committed serious crimes are often sent, has seen lockdowns, overdoses and assaults as a result.
“We knew coming in that this was an area that we needed to pay attention to,” said state Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett, the Senate’s budget chair.
But bills that would have seriously overhauled the system — making changes to when and how people would get to Green Hill and handing the Department of Children, Youth and Families more ways to manage the population there — failed to pass. Without those options, DCYF sent a letter asking legislators to include more funding for alternatives, including a 48-bed facility dubbed Harbor Heights that is opening in June and will relocate some men from Green Hill. The budget included $25 million over the next two fiscal years to fund the facility, which will be on the grounds of the Stafford Creek Corrections Center.
DCYF Secretary Tana Senn said in a statement that the close of session was a “mixed bag for the agency.”
“We’re relieved JR didn’t see cuts like the rest of our agency did and are grateful for the Harbor Heights funding, which will alleviate some overcrowding at Green Hill School,” the statement said. “However, we are disappointed in the lack of meaningful policy change. With the JR population expected to continue to grow, we see this session’s progress as an interim step rather than a fully realized solution. We plan to revisit needed policy changes next session.”
For Harbor Heights, the department aims to move men there on a voluntary, rolling basis. In early June, eight men from Green Hill who applied to the program will be moved, and all beds are expected to be filled by the end of the year.
While many human services budgets saw cuts, juvenile rehabilitation’s $365 million appropriation is an 18.8% increase from the 2023-2025 biennium.
The money also includes about $800,000 each year for specialists who will create a process for security reviews, staff to respond to safety issues and development of a model to assess capacity. Another $800,000 each year will be used to provide young incarcerated people with communication devices, likely tablets, for video calling and access to entertainment and a law library. A similar communication system exists in the Department of Corrections.
Also included is about $1.4 million for next year to continue funding the Naselle Youth Camp, which was formally closed in 2022 and no longer houses any youth. DCYF spokesperson Nancy Gutierrez said the money is used to pay for three staff, heating, groundskeeping and any needed maintenance and repair.
The department said it was “grateful” for funding for additional security and rehabilitation staff and increased funding for county partnerships.
But in the next, shorter session, legislators expect they’ll be talking about juvenile rehabilitation again.
“It is too early to know what the population in JR will look like over the next year and how these solutions make an impact,” a statement from the department said.