While the relative “value” of Youth Aids funding has declined over the years and the permutations of the Youth Aids formula has not necessarily kept up with local needs, the Youth Aids concept continues to be among the most creative approaches to juvenile justice funding in the nation. As states attempt to provide incentives to jurisdictions to increase community-based programs and reduce institutional placements, the current economic climate makes it even more difficult to find ways to reinvest. A measure of relative success related to juvenile justice funding was recently noted in a posting through the Models for Change web-site of the MacArthur Foundation, highlighting three states in which systemic funding reforms, including Wisconsin, were maintained, or close to it! While some note that the increasing responsibility that counties take on related to juvenile justice funding is a sign that the Youth Aids concept did not work, there are other things that suggest it had done what it was intended to do, namely incentivize counties to develop more local, effective, and safe alternatives.