Patrick Marley

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Madison — Gov. Scott Walker is considering having the state help fund building a Milwaukee County juvenile corrections center, but the county would have to pay for running it.

Milwaukee County officials have sought a way to keep more teen inmates closer to home instead of sending them more than 200 miles away to Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls.

The two secure facilities share a campus north of Wausau and have been under criminal investigation for nearly two years for prisoner abuse and child neglect.

“If they wanted to do something within Milwaukee County, we’d be very open to that,” Walker said.

But the county would be responsible for operating the new facility, the GOP governor said.

Counties get state aid to help them pay the costs of juvenile corrections, but how they manage that money is up to them.

Counties are billed about $292 a day per offender when they send offenders to Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake. That’s much more expensive than keeping them in their communities, but judges have few options for the most dangerous and troubled teen offenders.

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele said Walker's team had been open to helping the county on juvenile corrections. More meetings are planned soon with top officials in Walker's administration.

"They were very open to what we're interested in, which is a very different model," Abele said.

Having a local facility would make it easier for families to visit inmates and improve the ability of the county to monitor it, he said.

The details of a plan are still being worked on, and Abele and Walker said it was too soon to say what it might cost.

"Where we would like to get to is absolutely not sending anyone to Lincoln Hills," Abele said.

For the past year, Milwaukee County officials have called for removing the county’s juveniles from Lincoln Hills as soon as possible but have hit challenges in doing so.

“Where we might be able to partner with them is if they were going to either build or retrofit a facility. That’s something we could do potentially as a one-time thing in terms of the capital budget, of helping them, partnering with them, if that’s something they could do,” Walker said.

Funding for the center would need the support of Republicans who control the Legislature and will develop the state budget next year.