The Governor’s budget introduced today includes the closing of two juvenile correctional institutions, Southern Oaks School (Union Grove; girls) and Ethan Allen School (Wales; boys), and moving those youth to one consolidated juvenile correctional institution, Lincoln Hills School (Irma). As everyone is aware, the population at the institutions has continued to decline in recent years, and it became no longer economically feasible to maintain three separate institutions. The budget proposal projects an average daily population of the three facilities to be approximately 340 in 2012-13 – down substantially from 466 in 2009-10. The budget includes daily JCI rates of $284/day in FY 2011-12 and $289 in FY 2012-13 – compared to an estimated $538 and $543 it would have cost to keep all three programs operating.

Ethan Allen will close as of the end of the fiscal year, June 30. The timeline for transferring girls from Southern Oaks will depend on making modifications to the Lincoln Hills property, so that the girls’ program can be operated separately from the boys.