WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) -- Marathon County's juvenile detention center will remain open for at least the first half of 2019 while Sheriff's officials work on agreements with some Northern Wisconsin counties to help keep the facility solvent into the future.
County Administrator Brad Karger and others have been considering the facility's future for the last 4 months, and for now, he says they are going to continue to run it while working on other ways to offset its costs. "The [county] board made it pretty clear to me that they would certainly prefer to keep it open with greater regional impact than close it," said Karger.
In addition to losing space to house Marathon County teens who are sentenced to juvenile detention, closing the facility would bring other complications. "It's upsetting to employees, and we are all concerned that laws could change and 17-year-olds could be back in the juvenile system and we'd have to reopen it. The best alternative we have is to make the facility we have work."
To do that, Sheriff's officials are focusing their efforts on drafting agreements with Northern Wisconsin counties that would allow their juvenile offenders to serve their sentences in the Wausau facility. Karger says Chad Billeb with the Sheriff's office has been handling those discussions, and they seem to be moving in a positive direction.
Karger adds that at this time they aren't talking to "anyone who controls the checkbook yet," but those involved in the discussions do see a need for the service. "There's a lot of positive comments being made, but we haven't seen anything in the way of commitments.
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Right now the discussions are focused on those counties located north of Highway 29. Karger says other areas who may need the service like Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin could be factors as well, but a commitment from them isn't likely due to the distance.
The facility typically holds 5-6 kids from Marathon County at a time. Karger would like to see an additional 10 from out of the county to offset the overhead costs since those from Marathon County don't bring in any revenue.
Karger has long wanted to turn the facility into a money-making venture as a means of paying to open a new police channel that would ease radio traffic for law enforcement officials in the county.
A final decision on the facility's future is expected by early July 2019.
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