STATE SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE IS ASKING for a little open-mindedness.

The man who is largely credited with promoting the effort to consolidate the state’s two juvenile justice agencies — the embattled Texas Youth Commission and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission — said counties and juvenile probation departments don’t have anything to fear from a recommendation made by the state’s Sunset Advisory Commission to form a single juvenile justice agency.

“I’ve seen a lot of support for it,” Whitmire said, adding that the mission would be to merge the best aspects of both agencies. “TYC does not work, and some, my good friend Senator (Juan) Hinojosa who I worked with, said give it more time, but I don’t need more time. It’s got fundamental flaws.”

The Sunset commission drew its conclusions after it spent the last year studying deficiencies in the Texas Youth Commission, trying to understand why the TYC has spent the last decade working separately from its other half, the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. While the study concluded that the TJPC has mostly been operating effectively, Sunset legislators still drew the conclusion that the best way to fix the TYC would be a merger with TJPC. “TYC and TJPC have operated in silos, even after repeated legislative attempts to force better collaboration,” the Sunset report concluded, adding that it can no longer “justify their separate continuation. … TYC has planned too few of its operational initiatives in cooperation with TJPC or counties.”

Whitmire said he doesn’t know exactly how a single agency would operate, but that it’s an idea he plans to continue developing, despite the infusion of concern from local government and juvenile justice leaders across the state.

“Even if it’s not done this time, under any scenario, TYC will come back under (Sunset) review in two years,” Whitmire said, adding

general support, he was also chair of the Joint Select Committee on Operation and Management of the Texas Youth Commission during the interim.

One argument given for consolidation is the long-standing lack of collaboration between the agencies. The Sunset commission report cited several previous legislative attempts and Sunset reviews designed to force collaboration between the agencies, and said those attempts failed.

Spriggs said that is finally changing. For instance, the Youth Commission has become involved in working with the probation commission and urban counties on developing and utilizing a statewide Juvenile Case Management System (JCMS). “Full implementation of JCMS is dependent not upon consolidation of the two agencies, but upon funding,” she said.

The most repeated argument against consolidation is that such a move just isn’t worth the risk to the TJPC. In this case, juvenile justice workers seem to believe that one agency plus one agency in this case would still equal one, instead of something greater. County officials and juvenile probation officers worry that a single department would have to focus on fixing the “broken” half of the agency, throwing money in that direction and leaving probation programs competing for fewer dollars. Administratively, they said, creating a new agency would just be too much to take on at a time when the juvenile system is still trying to recover from changes in leadership and direction made over the last several years.

County probation officers said they trust TJPC to help them effectively serve juvenile offenders. It’s harder to trust an agency with no record, especially in the long-term.

In his public testimony, Bill Bristow, director of Grayson County Juvenile Services, said consolidation would “destroy a system that blood, sweat and tears have put together,” adding that, so far, the consolidation discussion has not addressed the importance of local control with regards to community-based programming. “Each year the Legislature has asked more and more of our agencies. We have produced.” His sentiments were echoed in testimony given by several others, including Joe Scott, who has been the director of Collin County Juvenile Services for the last 22 years.

Several county probation boards and commissioners courts — including Burnet, Dallas and Nueces — adopted resolutions against the recommendation; no county board submitted a resolution encouraging consolidation.

Edwards, with Bowie County Juvenile Probation, said her county’s probation department relies on TJPC for support, as do county probation departments across the state, and she added that it’s not worth the risk of upending that support system.

“TJPC has worked diligently with the county probation departments over the years providing leadership, funding, training and teamwork,” she said, adding that the agency provides high standards for county probation departments to follow and conducts on-site monitoring while maintaining strong working relationships with their county counterparts. “Probation departments would be at a loss without them.“

Whitmire promised that his intent is not to abolish TJPC through the proposed merger, and reiterated that he does not believe there will be a loss.

“The problem is, TYC is being run just like it was being run in the 1950s. If they want to completely start over with TYC, they could make improvements,” Whitmire said, but that wouldn’t give TJPC a chance to improve too. “If juvenile probation department heads and commissioners and others all decide that a single agency is going to make it work better, too, then it would enhance (TJPC). They keep saying that TYC is going to pull them down, but that’s no one’s intent.”

The Sunset report did make several recommendations that apply to both the TYC and TJPC, such as the need for more uniform assessment procedures; the importance of developing and putting into place statewide information sharing software and database programs to track youth and their progress; implementation of collaborative and long-term interagency strategic plans; and increasing mental health services to youths.

But combining the two agencies wasn’t the commission’s only recommendation that drew concern. Some officials said they were also concerned about a recommendation to award grants to community-based programs based in part on a program’s proven performance or success rate.

Nolan County Attorney Lisa Peterson said such a funding formula could prove detrimental to rural counties.

“The proposition sets up rural counties to fail,” Peterson said. “Since we have no facilities — and given our population, it doesn’t make sense to place one here — we have fewer resources for rehabilitation. Because of that, our numbers will appear worse, resulting in a cut in funding, which will result in a corresponding cut in the number of children we can place, resulting in another drop in our numbers.”

Lisa Edwards, who works in Bowie County Juvenile Probation, said it’s difficult to determine whether a community-based program “works” or not.

“Whether a program works or not depends on the offender and their ability or desire to change their behavior,” she said. “The creation of a new agency will not change how an offender responds to a program.”

Spriggs said the TJPC is planning on awarding a percentage of grants based on performance, but does not believe placing such a funding formula on all grants awarded to counties is beneficial.

Another funding conclusion drawn by the Sunset commission is that the current system unintentionally creates financial incentives for counties to send juveniles to the state-run facilities, since counties bear the costs of running community-based services, but not TYC facility commitments. The the Sunset report is conflicted over whether local departments have taken advantage of the system, stating at one point that “beginning in 2007, youth could only be committed to TYC for felony offenses, but TYC classified 49 percent of its new commitments as nonviolent ‘general offenders,’” while also admitting that many youths who could have been sent to TYC were treated locally.

The Sunset commission researched funding programs in other states designed to create incentives for treating youths locally. The commission cited Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as possible role models, and provided a possible pilot program. The proposed pilot program would give local juvenile probation departments an additional sum of money, which could be used toward sending youth to a state facility or for home-based treatment programs, but after receiving the state funds, the local department would then be responsible for paying for all youth facility commitments. “Local probation departments would have access to funds that were previously appropriated solely for the commitment of youth to TYC. Participating departments would be eligible to receive an amount equal to the State’s average costs for the commitment of youth from the department’s jurisdiction,” describes the report. “Departments would pay the costs of state commitment from this allocation or, if they so chose, use some portion of the funds to serve youth at home.”

Whitmire said his overall funding goal is to somehow attach state dollars more directly to the individual youths in need — and not primarily to the 2,000 youths in TYC.

“Counties have nothing to fear because the money will flow from the state to where the child is being confined. It should not damage juvenile probation, it ought to enhance it. TYC is down to just 2,000 kids right now, and the state is spending $115,000 per kid. You can come up with a new model. Most of the kids in TYC can be kept in their communities, mostly in the urban communities where they originated. … What I’m saying is, take a lot of the resources that you currently give to TYC and give them to juvenile probation. It’s going to be streamlined,” he said. “The money will find the kids.” (According to the Sunset report, TYC serviced 2,276 youth and spent $258 million in 2007 — $113,356 per youth. In comparison, juvenile probation departments serviced 51,623 youths in 2007 and spent $468 million in state, local and federal dollars — $9,065 per youth.)

Missouri has already implemented a model program similar to what Whitmire wants to see done in Texas — smaller community facilities — though he noted that it can’t be completely replicated here because of the state’s larger size and population.

Prior commissions charged with forming an opinion about how to reform the state’s juvenile justice system have also focused on the importance of keeping youths close to home and utilizing community-based program, but those commissions did not recommend a merger. In the Blue Ribbon Task Force Report, which was released in September 2007, the task force recommended a “regionalized system of care that supports the use of small facilities” with a long-term strategy to reduce commitments to centralized state facilities, and thus the size of TYC. Such a system, they said, should have “decentralized decision making that provides agency-wide ownership.”

That report also specifically mentions the Missouri Division of Youth Services, praising it not just for their smaller facilities but also for its general philosophy behind rehabilitating the state’s most serious juvenile offenders. “The emphasis is to get youth back into mainstream service — e.g. public schools — rather than keeping them segregated with other delinquent youth,” the report states, describing the model as promoting family involvement, having case workers provide aftercare services for youth after they are released from commitment and supporting caseworkers with personnel specifically tasked at tracking youth as they move through the system.

“At the most basic level, DYS facilities are set up to create a different environment, one that seeks to normalize the impact of institutional placement. When one enters one of their residential facilities, it simply does not feel like a correctional facility. There are no huge fences covered with razor wire,” the Blue Ribbon report describes. “The entryways, while they usually have a metal detector that visitors go through, do not have sallyport-type entries for visitors. The main living areas feel like large living rooms — one secure center near Kansas City has a big fireplace, lovely couches and chairs in the main room. This is true even for their most secure facilities, including those that house offenders who have committed murders.”