Geauga County Probate/Juvenile Court Judge Tim Grendell appeared before Geauga County Commissioners May 21 to discuss a shift from using the Portage-Geauga Juvenile Detention Center to the Lake County Detention Facility.
Geauga County Probate/Juvenile Court Judge Tim Grendell appeared before Geauga County Commissioners May 21 to discuss a shift from using the Portage-Geauga Juvenile Detention Center to the Lake County Detention Facility.
“Back in 2018, I had this great idea. I was looking at what it was costing us to put juveniles in the Portage-Geauga County Detention Center and it was quite expensive. It has ranged anywhere from $460 to $1,400 a night,” Grendell said.
A summary of the county’s 2024 tax budget shows Geauga County pays almost 17% of the cost to run the Portage facility. The county allocated about $585,000 to maintain the facility for 2024, with close to $3,000 of that total designated for a “construction projects” fund.
In his remarks, Grendell thanked Commissioner Ralph Spidalieri, who he said reached out at the beginning of this year to take up the topic once again. During their meeting Feb. 27, Commissioner Tim Lennon said the cost of the agreement with Portage had long been a frustration.
As juvenile/probate judge, the issue could not be solved without Grendell’s participation. However, he was tied up earlier in the year in a hearing before the Ohio Supreme Court Board of Professional Conduct.
That hearing, related to four charges brought in November 2022 by the Ohio Disciplinary Counsel, is ongoing, with written closing arguments due at the end of June.
In a May 20 email, Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz expressed concern to commissioners regarding increased drive time for law enforcement transporting minors to the Lake County Juvenile Detention Center compared to the distance to Portage County.
“I’d love to use Lake County rather than Portage, I mean it’s much closer,” Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand added. “It’d be a lot easier.”
Grendell said this year, the court has placed nine juveniles in the Portage center for a total of 30.4 nights.
“If they were in Lake County, that would have cost us $7,000. If it was in Richland County, it would have cost us $3,000. But, our share of this year’s operating budget at the PGDC is $582,471,” he said. “If you average that out to about $48,000 a month, we’re already into the cost of detention for this year in the vicinity of $200,000, versus $3,000 or $7,000. It doesn’t make sense.”
Grendell proposed a plan that would not tie the county to using only one detention center, but would allow the flexibility to house minors in different sites based on need.
Geauga juveniles could go to Lake County in most cases, while those in need of long-term detention could be sent to a suitable facility in Richland County. The Portage center could be a backup on a per-bed basis, with the county no longer having to carry a percentage of the overall costs, he said.
“Frankly, sharing this detention center, at a time when we’re not using it that much because we’re using alternate programming and a lot more mental healthcare facility type things, and trauma care type of things — which is where the whole juvenile justice system is going — it’s just hard to justify a half a million dollars when this year, we probably won’t have more than 30 kids in that detention center for more than you know, who knows, maybe 150, 120 days,” he said. “And we could save a lot of money from going the other direction.”
Commissioners unanimously approved a plan to notify Portage of their intent to withdraw from the current cost-sharing plan by June 30.
