Kane Juvenile Justice Center on track for 2nd courtroom

GENEVA – The Kane County Juvenile Justice Center is on track to get a second courtroom by Jan. 1, 2022 as the Kane County Judicial/Public Safety Committee approved the plan by consensus.

Once the request works its way through committees and to the County Board for its May meeting – and hopefully its approval – Chief Judge Clint Hull said they were looking at a mid-June construction start and be finished in five months.

“Is this a need or a want?” Hull said. “I think definitely this is a need and not something we would just like to have.”

Abuse and neglect filings have gone up from 59 in 2017 to 204 in 2020 and is projected to be 200 in 2021, he said.

Hull told the committee last week that the Juvenile Justice Center was originally built with the intention of having a second courtroom. So the addition would not require adding any square footage to the building.

The cost as estimated by Cordogan Clark in September was $851,548, Hull said. Of that, $125,000 is a rollover from the 2019-20 budget and the remaining $726,548 would be reimbursed through 2021 budget savings.

The money would come from unused funds and savings caused by the coronavirus pandemic because fewer juries were held and additional costs such as for interpreters and consultants were unneeded, Hull said.

“One of the things we see a lot is what we call dual involved youth, where we have youth who are not only charged in Delinquency Court, but those same youth are also in Abuse and Neglect Court.”

The current Abuse and Neglect courtroom is currently housed at the Third Street courthouse in Geneva which was built in 1892, Hull said.

“So we will have kids in both our Abuse and Neglect courtrooms because they have been taken away from their parents. They’re also committing crimes, so they have cases in both courtrooms,” Hull said. “But what happens right now is, we have to have them at Third Street one day and over at the Juvenile Justice Center another day. So the goal is to have Abuse and Neglect and the Juvenile Delinquency division in the same location.”

The space that would become the second courtroom currently houses the Public Defender’s office and part of the State’s Attorney’s Office, Hull said, still requiring what to do with both.

“We look at this as a possibility or an opportunity to capture some of the savings that covid has allowed us to capture this year,” Hull said. “When I say it’s a one-time opportunity, this is only because of the savings we are experiencing because of covid that would have the money to do this project.”

The savings was a result of partnership with court services and courts looking for areas of reduced cost, Hull said.

“Since we don’t have a capital line item, what we’re asking you to do is authorize the capital use of funds to build out the second courtroom,” Hull told the committee. “We understand the constraints that you have financially and what we have tried to do is figure out away that we can pay for this without coming to you and asking for any additional money.”

Board Member Bill Lenert, R-Sugar Grove, said he was “very much in favor of this.”

“The financing is not affecting our general fund at all,” Lenert said.

Committee Chairwoman Myrna Molina, D-Aurora, said she agreed.

“This is a wonderful exercise using one-time … funds and be able to use it for something that is needed that will be used for generations to come.”