Lebanon County faces $5 million funding shortfall for one agency’s costs

This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.

Lebanon County will need to fund nearly $5 million in increased costs for Children & Youth Services entering the 2026 fiscal year.

The county funded the agency at $2.86 million in 2025 and over $4.89 million is needed for 2026, an increase of 41 percent of the county’s share of the agency’s budget. The needed funding is through Juvenile Probation’s budget for services, placements and detention that are within the budget of CYS per state law.

This figure was announced at a county commissioner workshop on Wednesday, Sept. 17, and again at the Sept. 18 regularly scheduled meeting, which is when commissioners unanimously approved the agency’s fiscal year 2025-26 implementation budget, its fiscal year 2026-27 needs-based budget, and several other action items for the department.

The shortfall in the county’s 2026 budget is being caused by a number of factors, according to CYS administrator Erin Moyer and Probation Services director Audrey Fortna. Fortna led most of the workshop presentation while Moyer spoke during the regular meeting.

“Over the past several years, probation services has been underspent in utilizing our allocation of the needs-based budget. And each year, our percentage of allocation has decreased,” Moyer said. “We put the funds where they’re needed and typically over the past couple of years, Children & Youth has been overspent and our under expenditures have helped to cover some of those expenses.”

That was true during what she called the COVID years. However, a few years later, that dynamic has changed.

“This year what we saw is what I would call a rebound in our number of referrals to juvenile probation post-COVID. We did not have an immediate rebound of cases in juvenile probation, but starting in 2024 we did start to see those numbers increase back to what we would consider more pre-COVID numbers,” Moyer said. 

The inclusion of two new detention beds for juvenile offenders has increased costs to the county. LebTown previously reported that those beds can cost $800 per day and are court-ordered placements.  

“In addition, we finally gained some access to two detention beds so that when there is a need for community safety or for the safety of the youth, we had access now to two detention beds,” added Moyer. “When you’re utilizing the residential or detention services, those expenses are significantly higher than community-based services. And then, as we’ve discussed over the past couple years, when we’ve been presenting contracts, per diem rates have skyrocketed, especially for residential and detention services. And so the combination of all of those things have kind of put us in the position of where we are this year.”

She noted that empty bed costs are paid with juvenile probation funding and not the needs-based budget. When beds are empty, she said the county attempts to fill them by notifying her counterparts in other counties of their availability.

Fortna provided context at the workshop session.

“We’ve been in front of you now for the past couple years talking about the increase in contract per diem rates, especially for things like detention and for residential services. We’ve seen increases in the community-based as well but the higher rates are definitely attributed to more of the 24/7 services that we utilize,” she told commissioners. “So you also know that over the past couple of years we’ve implemented evidence-based services and we’ve seen a really good impact because of that.”

Costs have gone up, she explained, despite lower recidivism rates in Lebanon County for juveniles. 

“We have been utilizing more community-based services. We absolutely keep kids in the community when it is safe to do so or when it’s an appropriate service for the level of care that they need, but there are times and a place for the residential and the detention services and again that’s where we’ve been seeing the increases in the per diem rates,” Fortna said. “So despite the fact that we’re serving a lower number of youth and we’re utilizing a lower total days of care, we’re spending a lot more.”

Fortna also noted that funding has remained relatively flat over time. 

“The amount that we were allocated for fiscal year ‘24-25 is equal to, not equal, but in the same ballpark as the amount that we were allocated in 2018 and 2019. And so as you can imagine that doesn’t go very far,” she said. “The cost of things has definitely increased. And what we saw during ‘24-25 is we finally had a rebound year after COVID. You know some counties have seen increases gradually with the number of cases they were getting and we were kind of holding steady for a while. I would say that broke open during ‘24-25 so that definitely made an impact.”

Wolgemuth told LebTown after the meeting that it is too soon to determine whether the $5 million cost increase will lead to a tax increase in the 2026 fiscal year budget. He noted that the county is just preparing to enter the budget season and that most departments haven’t presented their proposed budgets to commissioners yet.

During the meeting, Moyer said she hopes the state ratio of 80/20 will cover the $5 million shortfall. However, the state still hadn’t passed the budget as of Thursday’s meeting and, as pointed out, there’s no guarantee those costs will be covered by the commonwealth once fiscal year 2025-26 state budget is approved.

Past, present & future

The fiscal year 2024-25 final report is an overview of past expenditures from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025. The 2025-26 implementation budget is a view of current expenditures for fiscal year July 1, 2025, and expected expenditures through June 30, 2026. And the needs-based budget for FY 2026-27 is expected future expenditures for the agency.

2025-26 implementation budget

Moyer said the department’s implementation budget for FY 2025-26, which was approved last year, is certified at $16.3 million with a county share of $3.82 million. The projected implementation budget is $18.28 million, with a county share based on the projected amount at $4.49 million. The county share increased by $666,286.. 

Children & Youth is certified at $13.11 million but based on FY 2024-25 expenses, estimates to expend $12.76 million, which is $346,896 under the certified allocation. 

Juvenile Probation is certified at $3.19 million, but based on FY 2024-25 expenses, estimates to expend $5.51 million, which is $2.32 million over the certified allocation.

Commissioners voted to accept these figures on Sept. 17.

2024-25 final report

Moyer also presented and commissioners approved the fiscal year 2024-25 for her department. 

Moyer said that for fiscal year 2024-25, the department was certified at $13.61 million, with a county share of $3.49 million. 

“We actually came in at $15.33 million,, which is an over-expenditure of over $1.71 million. Our county share will be $3.79 million,, which is an increase of $301,437 over the certified amount,” Moyer said. “At the commissioner’s presentation last year, we anticipated our estimated expenditure to be $14.78 million based on the prior year’s expenses; however, we still came in over that estimated amount.” 

She also said CYS was certified at $10.59 million and spent a total of $10.73 million, adding that the department was overspent by $139,572. She noted Juvenile Probation was certified at $3.02 million and spent a total of $4.58 million, which was an overspend of $1.57 million.

2026-27 needs-based budget

The needs-based budget request totalled $20.97 million, with a county share of $5.30 million, which is an increase from FY 2025-26 implementation budget. 

Children & Youth is requesting $14.17 million, an increase of $1.06 million over the FY 2025-26 implementation budget due to provider rate increases, as well as an increase in the number of children in placement and a need for more costly placements. Juvenile Probation is requesting $6.8 million, an increase of $3.61 million over the FY 2025-26 implementation budget.

These all were also approved unanimously by commissioners.

Other departmental actions

In other business, commissioners unanimously voted to: 

• Agree to 28 service provider contracts, with 15 either not requesting increases or being new providers for fiscal year 2025-26. The remaining 13 service providers will receive increases at an average of 5 percent, with all within budgeted amounts.
• Accept 63 placement provider contracts for fiscal year 2025-26. It was noted seven of those provider’s rates still await state approval or contracting information. 11 providers are not requesting increases or are already funded facilities at no cost to the agency. The remaining 45 providers will receive an average increase of 15 percent, all within the state-approved rate. These increases are due to increasing salaries and benefits, overtime pay due to staff shortages, increases in liability insurance and health insurance, and making enhancements to programming to improve outcomes.
• Pay fourth quarter fiscal year 2024-25 invoices totaling $4.86 million.

Read about other actions taken by commissioners at their Sept. 18 meeting.