Will County officials unveiled a $17 million capital improvement plan Tuesday that includes a 50-bed juvenile detention complex intended to house an increasing number of violent youths, many of them gang members.
The five-year plan, described by some as merely a wish list and by others as an agenda of long overdue projects, was approved by two County Board committees and sent on to its Executive Committee for action next week.
Ultimately, the plan would go to County Executive Charles Adelman to be incorporated into budget projections.
In addition to the youth home, the plan calls for a new public health complex, a temporary juvenile facility and a completely revamped
communications network for the Sheriff`s Department.
Finance Committee Chairwoman Judith Bredeweg (R-Bolingbrook) called the plan a ”a list of needs that must be addressed.”
”These projects are not going to go away,” she said.
One of the big-ticket items on the list, and the most likely to get early consideration, is a $2.5 million juvenile home to house a growing number of offenders, many of them street gang members from the east side of Joliet.
In the past, Will County rented vacant space in facilities elsewhere, principally Kane, Du Page and La Salle Counties, but it has been turned away recently because of a lack of space and the violent nature of the offenders.
At one point last month, Will County listed 20 juveniles in detention at various locations. About a third of them were accused of murder.
Bredeweg said construction of a juvenile home, requiring about a year, would mean a property tax hike.
Though cash-strapped Will County already is near its property tax limit, it can impose a special levy for a juvenile home of up to 6 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
In the meantime, officials are shuffling to come up with money to open a temporary juvenile facility in one of the six pods of the county`s new 340-bed jail.
Because juveniles must be kept separate from adult offenders, the 46-bed pod must be sealed off by a wall and have its own staff.
The cost of operating the pod as a juvenile home would be about $500,000 a year higher than if it housed adults, officials say.
The county has a July 1 target date for opening the temporary pod, which they call a two- to three-year stopgap measure.
The county`s new $23 million jail, which opened in March, is being filled in stages.
The fifth of six cell pods that radiate around a core building was opened last month.
Other projects on the county`s list include a $5.5 million Health Department facility, a study on the need for a courthouse annex, a $4 million communications network to replace the sheriff`s present 20-year-old system, and a $1 million contribution to a planned interchange at Interstate Highway 80 and Houbolt Road on Joliet`s west side.
The Health Department`s present quarters south of Joliet were built in the 1920s and are becoming expensive to maintain and repair, said Bredeweg, who also is chairwoman of the county`s Public Building Commission.
Will County officials have grown keenly aware of an undercurrent of anti- tax sentiment in this election year, but Bredeweg says the county`s building needs cannot be ignored.
She said the rapidly growing county still has the smallest budget of the six counties in the metropolitan area and has often ignored its building needs.
”If we wait too long, it will become a question of crisis management,”
she said.
