Orcas Rec: Supporting youth and preventing crime

What are some of the options for addressing the proposed elimination from the county’s 2009 budget of Orcas Island Recreation program funding (amounting to about $12,500) and a juvenile probation officer with the county Sheriff department (costing about $56,000)?

While we’re coming up with new solutions, new forms of governance, new ways of cutting costs and saving money, new ways of community support, we’d like to propose near-term and long-range actions.

First, re-align the budget so at least the Orcas Rec program can remain housed in the county office wing of the Senior Center in Eastsound. Orcas Rec, directed by Didier Gincig since 1996, was started in 1993 with county support, “the backbone of our funding,” according to Gincig. The Crime Prevention Fund was the genesis of funding for the program back then.

Second, while an impressive, enthusiastic program has been built under Gincig’s leadership, perhaps a line-by-line analysis of its operations and programs, similar to the microscope the Budget Advisory Committee took to the school district budget, could be undertaken by the Orcas Rec Advisory board.

Perhaps some adult programs, like the basketball and volleyball pick-up games, could be cut, in order to save some youth programs.

For the long range, County Council member Gene Knapp’s suggestion that Orcas Rec operate under a Parks and Recreation District for Orcas Island (as does the San Juan Island rec program) is an idea whose time has come, given the decreasing funds in county coffers.

Too much has been built up by this program for the youth of our island that promotes community betterment and prevents mischief and crime, to let this healthy resource slip away. “It’s more than what we do in our programs,” Gincig has said. “It’s the underlying opportunity while kids are growing up to connect with others, to develop their skills.”

Many of the arguments put forth recently by the county’s sheriff and prosecutor’s offices, protesting cuts to the Probation Officer position could well serve to defend the funding of Orcas Rec. Sheriff Bill Cumming told the County Council that eliminating one probation officer would put the entire program in jeopardy.

“Without consistency, the system breaks,” Cumming said. “It would be a huge loss and a mistake to pretend you could cut back from that and not see a reduction in service.”

As proposed, the job which would be cut from juvenile probation covers cases mostly on Lopez and Orcas islands and amounts for roughly 14 percent of the Juvenile Court Services’ annual budget. Juvenile probation efforts would be scaled back across-the-board. While emergency services will continue, probation and monitoring services will be reduced.

County prosecutor Charles Silverman cited a half-dozen cases in which the probation officer assigned to Lopez and Orcas has acted as a “substitute parent” and been able to turn lives around thanks to intense oversight.

A similar budget “scalpel” should be taken to the probation officer request. Many county officials are doubling up on their duties; maybe “as well as we can” is the best we can ask for in these belt-tightening times.

We do think it’s unadvisable to cut both the carrot and the stick from county services for juveniles; but if cuts are required, they should be as equitable as possible between these two programs, with the hope that the public service ethic will sustain the good that both Orcas Rec and the probation office do.

We must all take a good hard look at our expenses, our revenues, our workload and our treasured time, and sustain both a healthy community-building, crime-deterring program such as Orcas Rec and consistent juvenile law enforcement.

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