These changes responded to a concern that the old funding system created a financial incentive to place juveniles in JCIs, when less restrictive settings might be more appropriate. Any remainder could be spent on other juvenile services, such as in-home care. The Shrinking County Human Services Pie Counties also receive a state appropriation, Community Aids a block grant to cover general human service program costs. However, the fiscal demands from other county human services have also increased. Under the Governor s budget for calendar 2000, Community Aids are virtually unchanged from 1991, while county non-covered costs nearly tripled from 1988 to 1997.
Juvenile justice absorbs approximately one-sixth of county human services spending.
A major source of concern has been over the distribution of Youth Aids among counties. Since the early 1980s, counties with the fastest growing juvenile delinquency problems have seen the greatest gap between their costs and available state funding. This inequity is primarily due to the fact that the distribution of the state funds has been essentially unchanged since 1981. That 1981 distribution was itself based on youth population and arrests in each county in 1978, and has never been updated. Since 1986, the many task forces and DOC have proposed dozens of alternative funding formulas.