LOS ANGELES COUNTY : Probation Dept. May Close Juvenile Camps by March

Chief Probation Officer Barry Nidorf said Friday that he may be forced to close Los Angeles County’s 15 camps for juvenile offenders as early as March if the Board of Supervisors does not provide additional funding.

The Probation Department will need at least $7 million to keep the camps open until May, Nidorf wrote in a joint memo with Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon. The memo said the department also faces a labor shortage because 190 employees have opted for the county’s early retirement program.

Closing the camps would require approval of the Board of Supervisors, which this year had approved a plan to keep them open until May. But that plan collapsed because expected state funding did not materialize, Nidorf said.

Los Angeles County’s fiscal outlook has also worsened. Federal regulators have questioned a plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by deferring payments to the county’s employee savings program.