ST. MARTIN PARISH — St. Martin Parish has withdrawn from the Acadiana Regional Juvenile Justice District, a regional effort that had been exploring a new juvenile detention center to serve multiple parishes in Acadiana.
“We always believed that the state was going to fund this project, and they would've built one facility that would have accommodated nine parishes,” said St. Martin Parish Council Chairman Chris Tauzin, explaining the parish’s initial expectations.
When state funding did not materialize, the project shifted toward a model that would rely on a one-cent sales tax across the participating parishes. That change made parish leaders rethink their involvement..
“Whenever they were unable to secure the funding, that meant that we were going to pass a one-cent sales tax between the nine parishes to fund it,” Tauzin said.
The proposed facility carried an estimated price tag of roughly $81 million, with St. Martin Parish potentially responsible for $10 million. Tauzin said the cost would have been far beyond the parish’s current juvenile detention spending.
“Last year for instance, we only spent 119,626 dollars to house our juveniles; so it's not feasible for us to spend that kind of money,” he said.
Some juveniles from St. Martin Parish are currently housed in a facility operated by the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office, which can accommodate about 38 people. Sheriff Bequette Breaux suggested expanding that space as an alternative to the new facility, though he said the idea was not fully explored because he was only recently appointed to the district board.
Originally designed as a nine-parish partnership, the district now includes only five members, with St. Martin Parish as the latest to withdraw. No location for the proposed facility has been finalized, and the remaining parishes are expected to meet Tuesday to discuss next steps and vote on whether to move forward with the tax to fund the project.
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