Pima County Teen Court in Tucson, Arizona has several funding sources, most of which must be renewed through a grant process annually. Teen Court receives funds from the City of Tucson (CDBG funds and Outside Agency funds), Pima County (CDBG and Outside Agency), Simpson Foundation (private/local funding source) and Governor's Division of Drug Policy Office Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities to name a few. We have found that we don't usually fit the criteria for Federal grants.
At this time it is totally grant funded. We received a grant for three years and we are hoping that once the three years are up the state will take over and provide full funding.
I am the Vice-President for the Association of New Mexico. Most of our Teen Courts are funded by Department of Finance with the exception of four teen courts, including mine. We are funded by the Administrative Offices of the Courts. In additions I receive funding from The City of Hobbs, and the Hobbs Schools.
Our court began funding with the Byrne Grant and we are still receiving that. We have received funding from our county's Youth Bureau and this year will be receiving funding from United Way. In addition we have received several small grants, generally $1,000.00 or so. We have another year (possibly 2 of Byrne money), but the advisory committee is beginning to look for alternative funding now. Our county has frozen spending and hiring for 3 years, so for the program to be institutionalized by the county is unrealistic.
Lee County Florida Teen Court is run under the Direction of the Court Administrator.
Teen court is a branch of the Juvenile Arbitration Program. The Coordinator is employed by the court - and is responsible for Juvenile Arbitration as well as teen court.
Reach For Youth, Teen Court program receives funds from several sources. Our 2 largest sources come from United Way of Central Indiana and JAIBG. In addition we receive a number of smaller grants from various Foundations such as Hoover and Rotary. We also charge a fee for workshops and jury duty.
O.K., You asked! Funding in Florida: Florida's teen courts are administrated by various agencies, i.e., clerks of courts, sheriff offices, court administrations, and some are non-profit agencies.
GOOD NEWS: Many of our teen courts (38 to date out of approx. 55 total), with various administrators mentioned above, are funded through F.S.S. 938.19 which provides a local county government the option to adopt a local ordinance which provides for the collection of a $3 fee on many traffic and court cases. 5% of the fee goes to the clerk of court in any jurisdiction that adopts the ordinance. In many instances this revenue will support all of a teen court budget while in smaller counties it provides a large part of a budget. When we developed the legislation (from '92-'96) we knew it would, in most instances, be population driven i.e. large counties would collect a lot of fees and therefore could, and should, have large Teen Courts and small counties would have small programs. There is one exception, one small county that is an acknowledged "speed trap" with huge a huge # of tickets issued annually. What we also liked about the legislation is that it has people who are breaking the law paying for delinquency prevention!
BAD NEWS: The problem is that some large counties have encountered stumbling blocks and are not spending the money. Interestingly, in some instances, it is not because they could/should not have larger programs but the programs are being "capped" re the number of referrals they can take. The reason might be, in some instances, that other programs want a part of the revenue, a serious concern to those who are dependant on the revenue from the ordinance. One judicial circuit has presented an amendment to the legislation.
The programs who do not collect this revenue are funded through other grants or agency budgets. The counties who have chosen not to pass the ordinance have various reasons for not doing so. Since the ordinance revenue alleviates using tax dollars it would seem to be a great way to support prevention in any community and to utilize an available revenue stream.
For those of us who started our programs with nothing, this has made a huge difference. We are eternally grateful to the senators and representatives who have made it possible. Keeping it safe is now our biggest challenge!
This teen court started out with a 5 year grant. The three cities involved made up the difference. Now that the grant is over, the three cities foot the bill based on Population.
In response to funding of peer jury/teen courts, currently, our peer jury, which is multi-jurisdictional and is administered by myself as an employee of a township office, is funded through the tax dollars allotted for our human services division. At this time, I am also in the process of submitting a grant for money that, for the 4th year, has been given to local law enforcement agencies in Illinois through a JAIBG. Agencies receiving the funding can opt to pass through their money to another government entity and in our situation, one of the seven villages served by our peer jury, received funding and passed it through to us for us to apply. It is a specified amount and of course various components are required for grant submission.
Also, in the state of Illinois, the IJOA, being in its' second year of existence, has conducted annual one day meetings. The one held this year we discussed funding and many of the peer juries simply held fund raising events. Who you are as an organization will determine your limits in what you can do to raise funds as well as what grants for which you can apply.
If anyone has any questions, they can feel free to contact me at my office.
We fund our program in two ways. The majority of our funding comes from various fund raising activities that the court runs. We have a hot dog sale that covers the majority of the monies and also some smaller activities. Most of the administrative costs are covered by the Town of West Seneca through its police department budget. We have one detective that handles the court and schedules the community service. He does this as part of his regular duties in the department. Some of our administrative costs are also covered under a JAIBG Grant from the federal government that must be used in juvenile related programs. We have no paid employees that work solely for he court and the kids on the court use the time they spend in the court as community service credits for school related clubs and societies. We have a picnic for them each year along with a recognition dinner, and as a senior in high school they receive a scholarship to help defray their freshmen costs of college.
Flagler County's program since inception has been funded by the Clerk of Court's Office (through fines & fees). We now have adopted the ordinance, which helps support the program.
We started off with Federal Byrne Grant money, office space from the Town in which we are located (but are not part of the municipality) and private donations. When Byrne expired we were lucky enough to get Title V funds, still more private grants and community donations.
Our Teen Court is set up as a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization. We receive funds from the county, the three major towns in our county, donations from local entities in the area, court restitution (our Judges will periodically order an adult offender to pay restitution to teen court in lieu of a fine) and our court costs (each offender must pay $20.00 court costs to attend teen court). We have found that our program speaks so highly of itself by the success rate and the low cost of maintenance that our communities have really been supportive. I am a firm believer in getting your local support before you attempt to go after any grant dollars. Local support will stick with you as long as you show the need, but grant dollars can go away with a change in administration.
Initially my court was funded through our local Commission on Children and Families, but once that funding dried up, our County Sheriff's office picked up the program. The four diversion/teen court programs in our county receive JAIBG funding which gives us funds for things we do not have dollars in our budget for, such as training opportunities for our teen court youth, as well as coordinators.
Teen Court Of Huerfano County is funded through its local school district and 1 fundraiser a year. I also receive funding once in a while from a grant.
Winnebago County Teen Court was started with grant funding. We are now funded completely by tax dollars through Winnebago County. Our program is under the Circuit Court in the table of organization.
Some of the Teen Courts in Texas are funded 100% by the City, County or several cities within the county. Others are totally non-profit and are funded by grants and fundraisers. Others are under the umbrella of other non-profit agencies (i.e. Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, Camp Fire, etc). Fort Worth's Teen Court is public/private non-profit. The City pays 2 full time salaries, provides office and courtrooms and most supplies. The non-profit board of directors, funded by small grants from foundations, provides a part-time staff, the awards banquets, Teen Attorney training, conference and membership fees and some office furniture including TV/VCR's for class.
