Deal May Save Camps for Young Offenders : Budget: Senate approves Assemblyman Friedman’s bill after he reached an agreement with Gov. Wilson. Lower house is expected to OK measure.

Juvenile probation camps in Los Angeles County that had been threatened with closure because of the budget squeeze appear to have been spared by an agreement between the Wilson Administration and Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood).

A Friedman bill to implement the agreement was passed Friday by the state Senate and returned to the Assembly for expected approval.

Eighteen of the 19 Los Angeles camps for young offenders, along with others in Santa Clara and Kern counties, had been threatened with closure since last spring for lack of local funds. However, the new state budget signed by Gov. Pete Wilson on Wednesday night contains $33 million sought by Friedman and Los Angeles County officials to keep all the threatened camps operating. Rand Martin, a Friedman aide, said an agreement was reached Monday with Administration officials to include the appropriation in the budget.

The local camps are an alternative to the California Youth Authority for less hardened offenders, and provide academic, job training and drug rehabilitation programs. If the camps had been closed, such offenders probably would have been freed on unsupervised probation or sent to group homes or the CYA at a higher cost to taxpayers, Martin said.

The Friedman bill was separate from the package of legislation Wilson said had to be approved before he would sign the main 1993-94 state budget bill.