BERRIEN COUNTY COMMISSION UPDATE

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
ST. JOSEPH – Berrien County news came last week on a number of fronts, from an expensive price tag for a proposed new county juvenile center to broadband expansion news. County Commissioners also discussed raising trial court clerk wages in order to retain and recruit more people.
County Commissioner Dave Vorrath reported that the Administration Committee heard from consultants about progress on the county’s juvenile center plans. Wightman and DLR representatives are doing preliminary design work on a proposed new juvenile center as well as possible updates to the existing juvenile center in Berrien Township.
Vorrath said they are preparing information on building a new center and renovating the existing facility in terms of costs and best use of resources. The two firms are also looking at work that needs to be done at the county jail.
County officials have been debating the future of the juvenile center for more than a year. The proposed new juvenile center site is on land the county owns off Napier Avenue in Benton Township and could also be home to new county jail and courthouse facilities at some point in the future.
The current juvenile center site is on Dean’s Hill Road in Berrien Township, is 50 years old and is nearing the end of its useful life. Vorrath said that there is also discussion on the future of the adjacent former Berrien General Hospital which is now home to a substance abuse treatment program.
The information provided by the consultants to commissioners last week showed that it could cost as much as $92 million to build a new, much larger juvenile center complex on the Napier Avenue site as compared to nearly $86 million to renovate and add onto the existing Berrien Township site.
Consultants also gave commissioners an idea of what can be done with a smaller total price tag. They said a total price tag of between $20 and $25 million would give the county a much smaller new facility with only 12-16 beds for retention of juvenile offenders. A smaller scale renovation of the existing facility would cost nearly $27 million.
Consultants said they developed their proposals after considering a number of factors ranging from current and future needs to the county’s demographics. They noted that the county’s juvenile population ages 10-19 is expected to rise slightly and that while overall juvenile crime is down, there have been spikes in crime involving weapons, assaults and the like.
The consultants also found that juvenile detention admissions to centers is down, residential admissions are up. They projected the county could need space for as many as 19 detentions and 17 residential placements by 2035.
20 years from now, county officials have said they may need space for as many as 24 detentions and 24 residents. They noted that Michigan has recently changed the age of when a juvenile is considered for criminal charging purposes to be an adult from 17 to 18 in most instances.
Consultants noted that there is a need nationwide for residential space for juvenile offenders and that extra bed space in a new center could be rented out to other counties without such facilities.
The BC Bit Taskforce also met last week to discuss the latest news in broadband expansion. News had come in June that Midwest Energy Communications, based in Cassopolis, had gotten preliminary approval for a state grant to expand broadband service to much of Berrien County.
The new state grant will allow the company to bring broadband to over 5,000 unserved customers in Berrien County. The project is expected to cost $23 million with funding coming from the grant and county and township ARPA funds.
County broadband consultant Chris Scharrer told taskforce members last week that state officials have told him that at least one challenge has been filed against MEC and other companies awarded state grants. He said it was unclear what that would mean for the final grant approval which had been set to take place in September.
Taskforce members also talked about what to do to help Berrien County municipalities not in the area to be covered by MEC. They said that area is primarily along the Lake Michigan shoreline from New Buffalo north and also west of I-94.
They noted that other grant programs are available to fund broadband expansion into those areas. County officials will be contacting local officials in those areas to see if they are still willing to use their ARPA funds for future expansion projects.
County Administrator Brian Dissette said it remains to be seen if the county has any of its own ARPA funds left to help defray the costs of such projects. The county has set aside $6 milliion of ARPA funds for broadband expansion and has already committed $1.5 million and most if not all of the remaining $4.5 million to the MEC related project.
Dissette said in the meantime he will be working with townships served by the MEC project once everything is settled with the state grant. Townships need to complete subgrant agreements with MEC and the county will be providing them with sample documents they can fill out.
In other county news, County Commissioner Robert Harrison said his county board committee discussed an issue raised a week earlier by county clerk employees. Over a dozen court clerk employees told commissioners that they were overworked and underpaid and that several open positions haven’t been filled.
Harrison said the committee discussed the situation and is gathering data to present to the full board at a later date. The county board had commissioned a wage study be done in 2020 and last year accepted it and implemented new salary schedules to raise people’s wages. The trial court clerk employees said they were left out of that action.