County closing youth group homes

The Prince William County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 6 to 2 to close the county-operated Boys and Girls Group Homes.

The closure of the respective 12-bed facilities -- built in 1987 and 1991 respectively -- will take place Feb. 27. Nineteen positions will be eliminated, three of which are currently vacant.

The move is estimated to save more than $600,000 in this fiscal year alone as well as future escalating costs out of the county’s control.

Frank J. Principi-D, Woodbridge and John D. Jenkins-D, Neabsco, were the lone dissenters on an issue that raised multiple questions across the board. Jenkins was the most vocal in his dissension, calling the process of arriving at the decision “the most mismanaged activity in DSS [Department of Social Services] for the last 10 years.”

Jenkins’ biggest beef was the agreement between the county and the non-profit Youth for Tomorrow and how it changed the funding dynamic for current and future fiscal years.

The county receives funding from the Comprehensive Services Act according to how many beds it can occupy with residents.

Out of the 24 remaining residents as of last summer, 13 were eventually transferred to the YFT campus in Bristow. That move, which will save the county 20 percent per individual in per diem costs, has played a significant impact on the current numbers.

Only seven boys currently live at the eastern county location while just one girl now stays at the mid-county site, according to Social Services Director Jack Ledden.

“When you tell me you have just funneled all of your clients over to another activity, now you got yourself in a financial mess in this fiscal year and you can’t recover from it,” Jenkins said. “... It seems to me that the financial mess is right in the middle of the year ... and we’ve had no public input to examine your process. More public information today flowed from the questions from this board than I have seen at any other time.”

A committee comprised of county and Youth for Tomorrow staff and others made the decision last summer that led to the transfer of these residents to YFT.

According to Ledden, management from the group homes, CSA agents as well as referral agencies met recently to decide the fate of the remaining eight individuals. Some potential options could be returning the children to individual homes or possibly shipping them out of the county to other facilities in Virginia.

Ledden said there were many reasons for the decision to close, calling it the “perfect storm” of circumstances. A change in philosophy towards group home care, an unprecedented budget shortfall, a lack of state funding and a diminishing staff served as the primary reasons for the tough decision.

The county is facing a $81 million budget shortfall and had to come up with scenarios that required 10, 20 and 33 percent cuts in each departmental budget. The 10 percent budget cut to Social Services included the closing of the homes.

The CORE program, or the First Lady’s Council on Reform, also had a major impact.

The initiative is intended to reduce the number of at-risk children placements in congregate or group care like the Boys and Girls group homes.

Because of this, the state funding through CSA, which provides the greatest percentage of funding for the centers, will be reduced. Starting this month, the county’s share increases by five percent and three more percent in July.

Supervisor Martin E. Nohe, R-Coles said this matter is close to his heart but chose to vote to close the centers because there seemed to be alternatives for these children.

“You can only do so much,” Nohe said. “When you try to help everyone, you end up helping no one. Here we have an opportunity -- it may be imperfect -- but we have other choices available to us.”

Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-878-8062.