Great Bend Post

GREAT BEND-The Barton County Juvenile Services Department is trying to deal with the loss of over $32 thousand dollars from their 2016 budget. The budget cuts did not come from money provided by Barton County.

Instead the cuts came from the Department of Corrections Juvenile Services in Topeka, part of a $62 million dollar budget realignment at the state level. The cuts have left Director Laurie White scrambling to find ways to make up for the lost funding.

“We recently had a position come open but we are not going to fill that position. We will allot some money to the on-call workers instead,” said White.

White also told Barton County Commissioner on Monday that some of the money set aside for administrative salaries would now be used for prevention personnel and other services.

Commissioner on Monday approved the Revised 2016 fiscal budget for Juvenile Services, which is part of the 20th Judicial District that includes Barton, Rice, Russell, Ellsworth and Stafford Counties.