Geauga Ends Portage Juvenile Detention Agreement

September 12, 2024 by Amy Patterson

Geauga County’s juvenile detainees will no longer be housed in the Portage-Geauga Juvenile Detention Center after officials decided to withdraw from a years-long cost-sharing agreement.

County Administrator Gerry Morgan told Geauga County Commissioners, who voted in favor the decision Sept. 5, that once they approved a new agreement with their neighbors to the north, a juvenile arrested in Geauga County would be transported to the Lake County Juvenile Detention Center, where the county can instead pay on a per-night basis.

In an email after the meeting, Morgan said while it is hard to estimate the savings to the county in any individual year, breaking the agreement with Portage represents a 100% savings, as Geauga had no juveniles using the facility at the time.

“If we were still under the Portage-Geauga agreement, we would still owe the 2024 quarterly share of $146,324.88, even with no one in detention,” Morgan said.

Under the previous agreement, Geauga County was responsible for a percentage of the overall operational costs of the facility. The amount paid each year was determined by the percentage of bed-nights used by each county the previous year.

For the four previous years, Geauga County’s cost share has been $594,000 in 2021, about 23% of the facility’s operating costs; $307,000, or 12%, in 2022; $463,000, or 15%, in 2023; and $585,000 in 2024, or about 17% of the facility’s operating costs.

“To look at it a different way, taking the 2024 charge and dividing by 365 days in a year (meant) the daily amount we were paying was $1,603.56,” Morgan said. “Also, using the $225/bed-night rate at Lake County, Geauga County will need to have 2,601 bed-nights (average of seven juveniles per day) to reach an expenditure equal to the amount budgeted for 2024 in the Portage-Geauga facility.”

Geauga has also struck an agreement for long-term placements at the Richland County Juvenile Detention Center.

Morgan said the new terms for the Lake County center are $225 per bed-night, while the Richland County center will cost $100 per bed-night. Both agreements have additional provisions for incidentals like medical costs, which Morgan said was a separate payment under the Portage-Geauga agreement.

Commissioners’ Clerk Christine Blair said the Lake County agreement has been signed by Geauga County Juvenile/Probate Judge Tim Grendell, his colleague in Lake County, both county prosecutors and the president of the Lake County Board of Commissioners.

“It’s like herding cats,” Commissioner Tim Lennon joked.

Blair added the Richland agreement has also been sent to Richland County Commissioners for approval.

Earlier in the meeting, the Geauga County Commissioners discussed the possibility of leveraging county money to help with ongoing improvements at the Geauga County Airport in Middlefield.

After agreeing to a reduction in cost related to a current hangar improvement project, Commissioner Ralph Spidalieri said there are funds available for airport improvements from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The airport could take out a low-interest loan with the county refinance it after paying off a large portion with FAA dollars, he said.

A current hangar project will help relieve a wait list that is currently 32-deep, he said.

The airport’s hangar rates are actually higher than some others nearby because of its central location, he added.

“(People) around here have aircraft and they want to keep them, keep it closer to home. So I think it’s a win-win,” he said. “I think (a loan) would be a good move and I think it’s a good investment because it just continues to keep people, you know, using that facility and they build off of that.”

Commissioner Jim Dvorak said he was okay with leveraging the county’s funds to help build up the airport and suggested the county figure out a plan to move forward.

Lennon said after pivoting toward renting hangar space and selling fuel, the airport has become self-sufficient over the last five or six years.

Continuing to expand is another way they could self-sustain, but Lennon also pointed out another upside to having a quality airport in the county.

“I think we’re starting to pull some of … those owners that were having to go to Lake County or Lost Nation or Cuyahoga County, you know, they’re seeing how attractive this could actually be here,” he said. “And, those are the types of, you know, you get one or two of those business owners that says, ‘Hey, not only do I want to relocate where I live and play, but also where I house my business.’ Now, we’re talking.”