Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Privatization boondoggle

Wow, this is like stepping back into a time machine. The Kerr County Commissioners are bidding to purchase the juvenile detention center in Kerrville.

I was writing about this story 10 years ago when I was a reporter at the Kerrville Daily Times. Back then there was this company called Rehabilitation and Corrections Corp. or Recor that was proposing to build a private juvenile facility for $2.5 million and pay for it by bringing in juveniles from all over the region. At the time I was highly skeptical of the proposal especially since the state was saying it would not reimburse counties at the rates that Recor was planning to charge.
But privatization was the big thing back then and Republicans were touting it as the answer to every problem, so they went ahead with the plan.

I have no idea what all took place during the interim. Recor is apparently long gone - I can find nary a trace of them on Google - and now some group of investors have been left holding the bag. And now the county wants to buy the facility outright, something they probably should have done 10 years ago.

No comments:

Post a Comment