LOS ANGELES COUNTY : State Funds Sought for Offender Camps

Los Angeles County supervisors have asked the county’s top probation official to send a letter to Gov. Pete Wilson asking that he commit to funding half the cost of operating youth probation camps here during the coming year.

If Wilson will not make such a commitment to Chief Probation Officer Barry Nidorf within the next few weeks, supervisors said this week, they will be forced to proceed with plans to begin closing 18 of the county’s 19 camps at the end of May. Annually, the camps house about 4,500 youthful offenders.

“We can’t wait until the last minute,” County Supervisor Gloria Molina said Tuesday. “The reality is we’re stretching ourselves as it is.”

It would cost the county about $5 million to keep the camps open through the end of June, when pending state legislation could provide half of the estimated $61 million needed to keep them running during the next fiscal year. But Molina and others said the county cannot afford to spend that $5 million if the future funding is not promised.

At a state Assembly hearing held at Camp Karl Holton in Little Tujunga Canyon on Friday, legislators said they wanted to keep the camps open another year and were willing to fight for the funding. But Nidorf said he had heard rumors from Sacramento that there are concerns brewing over the precedent of the state bailing out financially distressed local governments.