Cook County leaders are sending the state of Illinois a big bill. They want the state to pay them back for the money they spend holding state wards in juvenile jail after a judge has said they’re free to go.
Last month WBEZ reported that the Department of Children and Family Services routinely leaves hundreds of kids stuck behind bars for weeks, even months, after a judge says they can go home. That’s because they are wards of the state, and their guardian, the state of Illinois, can’t find a place for them.
"The message is that we don’t care about them, and that we think their liberty isn’t an important issue. And I think that’s a terrible message to send to young people."
Beyond that, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle says its a financial burden for the county.
"The obligation of every executive is to run your department to the best of your ability, and that means that you don’t cost shift your financial burdens and obligations."
So, for the first time ever, the county is sending a bill to the state of Illinois. They want the state to reimburse them for the cost of keeping state wards locked up in the juvenile jail while they wait on DCFS. The bill is for just two months, December and January, and it comes to almost 233 thousand dollars.
If that sounds impossibly high, it’s because 41 DCFS wards spent a combined 665 days in jail AFTER a judge told them they were free to go.
"It’s a cost to Cook County and the taxpayers." The juvenile jail is in Cook County Commissioner Robert Steele’s district. And he recognizes that at that rate, the cost could amount to 1.5 million dollars a year. "So that’s a huge burden."
In a letter to DCFS, outgoing jail administrator Earl Dunlap says prolonged stays at the jail for children awaiting DCFS placement is an unreasonable intrusion on them and can cause lasting damage.
Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans oversees the juvenile jail, known as the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. He says he’s not concerned about who foots the bill.
"The counties pull from the same taxpayers that pay state taxes, so the main thing is we don’t want taxpayers to have to pay for anything unnecessarily."
The day I spoke with Evans in late February, he told me as we spoke there were 12 DCFS wards waiting in jail for DCFS.
"Many of them are suffering already, many of them, they’ve been abused and neglected on one side and then they engage in some delinquent conduct on the other side. So they’ve already been subjected to trauma in many instances and so to keep them just exacerbates the problem."
Andrew Flach is a spokesman for DCFS. He says the agency’s new leader George Sheldon will bring stability.
"The governor has made it a priority to turn the agency around and that includes bringing someone in like Director Sheldon to help us get the job done."
Cook County’s demand for repayment comes at a particularly bad time for the state government. Governor Bruce Rauner is calling for massive cuts to close a multi-billion dollar budget gap.
Flach says the department has not yet received the invoice.