By ROBIN SHANNON

L’Observateur

CONVENT – A multi-parish board, including representatives from St. John the Baptist and St. Charles parishes, will soon be responsible for operating and funding the St. James Youth Detention Center, thanks to new legislation that will be signed Friday by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

St. James Parish President Timmy Roussel told the parish council last week that the Legislature approved a pair of bills designed to assist the parish in operating the detention facility, which houses juvenile offenders from six neighboring parishes and 25 law enforcement jurisdictions. The new legislation will take some pressure off St. James Parish, which has been solely responsible for operations at the facility.

The first bill gives the St. James Youth Detention Center and others in the state an additional six months to review new rules and regulations required by the state Department of Children and Family Services for operational licenses. The department recently assumed control of juvenile facilities from the Office Of Juvenile Justice and the shift created new guidelines for operation.

Roussel said a recent review of operations at the St. James detention center showed a lack of compliance in a host of structural and administrative areas, including separate buildings and gender specific guards for male and female occupants, as well as additional guards for overnight operations. He said the facility would not have been ready in time for the parish to submit licensing application paperwork by the state-mandated April 30 deadline.

“It costs the parish about $1.2 million a year to operate the youth center,” Roussel said. “With the new guidelines, we would have had to be prepared to possibly build an entirely new building, and that is too much for us to handle alone.”

The other bill creates a multi-jurisdictional board of commissioners to support and promote operations at the detention center. The 10-member board will include members selected by the governing bodies, sheriffs and district attorneys in each parish served by the detention center, as well as judges handling juvenile cases in those parishes. Roussel said the board will include St. James, St. John, St. Charles, Ascension, Assumption, West Baton Rouge, Iberville and Point Coupee parishes.

“Each of those parishes sends juvenile offenders to the facility, and each will contribute to the operations in some fashion,” Roussel said. “We can house as many as 40, but we average anywhere from 25 to 31 per day. This will no longer be a St. James facility. It will be a multi-parish entity.”

Roussel said he would recommend to the council that the parish donate the facility to the eight-parish commission so parishes do not have to come up with any out-of-pocket money. The breakdown of how each parish will contribute financially has not been determined, but Roussel said funds could come in the form of property taxes. He said the legislation also gives the board the authority to issue voter-approved bonds.

Roussel said he hopes to see the new board formed within the next four to six months so it can be in place in time for the new state licensing guidelines to go into effect.