Counties Complain Of High Expenses From ‘Becca Bill’ Spokane County Sends Bill To Legislature For $816,000

Thirteen counties are billing the Washington Legislature about $6 million for costs of enforcing the “Becca Bill.”

They threaten to sue if it isn’t paid.

Spokane County’s demand, which commissioners mailed Tuesday, is $816,000, including $273,000 the county has already spent and $543,000 it expects to spend in the next two years.

The counties are demanding that the state fully fund the 1995 law designed to help control chronic runaways. Key senators have promised to consider the issue next year.

“Nobody’s questioning the law. We’re just saying it has created a financial burden on the counties,” said Diane Oberquell, a commissioner for Thurston County, which is leading the effort.

The Becca Bill allows officials to hold runaways for up to five days without court approval and gives parents of children under 17 the right to commit their kids to psychological care, or alcohol or drug treatment programs.

It also requires schools to file truancy petitions with the courts for repeat offenders.

The law was named for Rebecca Hedman, a Tacoma runaway who became a drug addict and prostitute. Hedman was murdered in a Spokane motel room in 1993, when she was 13.

Spokane County court officials contend that the $72,000 the state gave the county so far to enforce the Becca Bill is not nearly enough.

Among the county’s costs in the last two years were $72,000 for a judicial officer, $45,000 for clerical work and $80,000 for court-assigned counselors, county attorney Jim Emacio wrote in a claim to the state Office of Financial Management.

Initiative 601, which voters passed in 1993, forbids the Legislature from passing on the cost of state laws to local governments. Yet county commissioners across the state complain that they’re often left to pay for laws legislators thought were important enough to enact, but not to fully fund.

Some of the examples cited by Oberquell: Increased penalties for drunken drivers; government-funded burials for people who die without family or money; better benefits for veterans; improved medical care for jail inmates; and the Growth Management Act.

“We’re reaching the saturation point,” said Oberquell. “A buck only stretches so far.”

Spokane County commissioners have told staff to keep track of such costs. They plan to send more bills to the state.

Commissioner Kate McCaslin said the county may start a similar list of federal mandates that aren’t funded.

McCaslin said she appreciates Congress’ work to balance the budget, but said it’s wrong to expect local governments to take up the slack.

“They cut the funding but the mandate goes on,” McCaslin said. “In my view, that’s not fair.”

Okanogan County was one of the first to bill the state for unfunded Becca Bill costs. The county processed 355 petitions for truancy and 13 under other aspects of the Becca Bill in the 1995-97 biennium.

Okanogan County Juvenile Court Administrator Bruce Moran said the law is straining the county’s overcrowded juvenile detention center as well as the county budget.

“We don’t have room for all of our offenders,” Moran said. “Now we have these truant kids that we’re supposed to lock up. It’s a heck of a financial drain on my county and it’s a real cruncher on our overcrowding.”

Still, Moran also said the Becca Bill is needed.

“The problem is not the law,” he said. “It could use some tweaking and fine-tuning, but the law is good. I support the Becca Bill. It’s just that I need the resources to accomplish that mission.”

He fears public confidence in the system will be undermined if enforcement falters for lack of money.

Those sentiments are shared by Paula Holter-Mehren, Moran’s counterpart in the judicial district that serves Stevens, Pend Oreille and Ferry counties. She said the law paid off Tuesday when a 13-year-old was “more than happy to go back to school” after four days in the new Martin Hall regional juvenile detention center in Medical Lake.

Holder-Mehren said she is urging the county commissioners in her district to join other counties in billing the state for unfunded costs.

Schools also are pinched by the law, and Newport High School Principal Mike Parker thinks small-population districts like Newport’s are especially hurt.

In addition to keeping track of when a student has had five unexcused absences in a month or 10 in a calendar year and informing court officials, schools must send a representative to court to attend hearings where judges order children to return to school.

“We have been going consistently twice a month,” Parker said, noting it takes two to three hours to wade through each crowded court docket.

He said he’s fortunate to be just a block away from the court and to have an intern to take his place sometimes. Principals in more remote districts may spend all day on court cases, Parker said.

He worries about increasing state pressure to increase academic standards while legislators continue to heap social problems on schools. Still, he supports the Becca Bill.

“It’s a hammer that, unfortunately, some kids need,” he said.

Parker said reimbursement would do little to solve his problem as the only administrator at Newport High.

“I’m out of the building two or three hours on a Thursday afternoon and there are some things that only I can take care of,” he said. “It’s hard to reimburse that.”

, DataTimes