Abbeville council votes to set aside funds to cover juvenile detention

How to handle juveniles detained by local law enforcement has long been an issue in Vermilion Parish.
At the center of that issue is which government entity pays for the juvenile detention. In years past the Vermilion Parish Police Jury paid 100 percent of the bill, regardless of where the juvenile was arrested.
In the last few years the police jury began to dispute that practice, leading to a lengthy process with the municipalities.
“We have been through litigation and we have attempted legislation,” Abbeville City Attorney Ike Funderburk said. “We finally got to a position where the city and the (Vermilion Parish) police jury recognized that we had to work together to solve this.”
The police jury entered into a contract with the Lafayette Juvenile Detention Center. The facility agreed to take a certain number of juveniles from Vermilion Parish, at a cost of $125 per day.
Abbeville, Kaplan and the police jury entered into an intergovernmental agreement that has the cities paying 100 percent of the first three days of detention.
“That is usually the time period that is required for them to get the kid in front of the judge,” Funderburk explained.
If a juvenile is housed beyond that three-day period, the cities and police jury will split the cost.
Abbeville, which pays for only juveniles who go through city court, has received its first invoice. The city’s share, which covers the span of several months, is $12,500.
“The city paid its portion and the police jury paid its,” Funderburk said. “That was over the course of a several month period.
“The second bill that we got in was in the range of about $2,500.”
One caveat of the billing is that it will never be a set amount.
“You are looking at a fluid situation,” Funderburk said. “You don’t know how many kids you are going to have in detention on any given day.
“It depends on what is going on in the street, what arrest have been made and what the city judges doe.”
Funderburk advised the city council Tuesday to budget an amount each month to cover the potential cost. The council agreed, voting 5-0 to set aside $3,000 per month.
“That will be $36,000 a year,” Funderburk told the council. “We may not use that all in one year. Two years from now we may use that and more.
“It just all depends on what is going on.”
Councilman-at-Large Francis Plaisance said it is simply a matter of being prepared.
“The point is that it is a critical need,” Plaisance said. “We have to have that in our budget to have at our disposal when we need to take care of that problem.”
Councilman Brady Broussard Jr., District C, said he is pleased to see a resolution to the situation.
“A lot of hours, days, weeks and months have gone into this,” Broussard said. “We have finally gotten everyone together and everybody is working together. One entity is not going to pay for all of this. Now there is a cost sharing mechanism in place.
“I know this did not come easy.”
Funderburk agreed.
“It did not,” he said “It took a lot of political will and legal will to make it happen. I appreciate the work of (Police Jury Attorney) Paul Moreisi in this. We worked well together on this, with input from police chiefs, judges and mayors.
“The result is what is the best thing, not only for our communities, but also for these kids.”