Tyler

By ROY MAYNARD
Staff Writer

Changes within the troubled Texas Youth Commission and Texas Juvenile Probation Commission don't bode well for Smith County, Juvenile Services Director Nelson Downing told Smith County commissioners on Monday.

Unfunded mandates will only increase, he warned, and the demands on the county budget will expand.

"In the space of five years, the bureaucratic stranglehold of mandated standards has increased from approximately 200 pages of regulations to around 2,000," Downing told commissioners. "TJPC supplies approximately 22 percent of the department's detention and probation budgets, but dictates 100 percent of the operation."

In 1998, the cost of detention operations was about $55 per day, per juvenile, Downing reported. By 2007, it had jumped to $190 per day, per juvenile.

And now, the state is talking about transferring supervision of parolees from TYC to the counties, Downing added.

"This could be monumental ... in terms of manpower, facility and budget," he said.

From his experience, Downing added, there's little use in appealing to the TYC or TJPC boards.

"But they may listen to legislators," he said.

He recommended that commissioners meet with lawmakers, and perhaps the Texas Association of Counties.

"A moratorium on any new standards would be a starting place," he said.

Commissioners did not hear about a new cooperative purchasing agreement that has been crafted by Purchasing Director Kelli Davis; Ms. Davis was out sick on Monday. That program will be revisited in a future meeting.

In other business on Monday, commissioners approved: