More questions arose about the Baldwin County Residential Wilderness Facility during Tuesday’s Baldwin County Commission work session, as commissioners wanted to know more about new safety protocols and vetting standards for juveniles coming into the camp.

Commissioner Chris Elliott said he voted against reopening the camp last week because he was concerned about what steps were being taken to institute new protocols that would help better protect the facility’s employees and limit the county’s liability.

Elliott asked whether Baldwin County Risk Manager Larry Davis had been involved in any changes at the facility, with Davis replying he had “limited involvement” thus far.

Elliott also questioned why the county wasn’t charging other counties to send their juveniles to the facility.

“As soon as possible, I’d like to have our finance staff start charging other counties to have their children at Wilderness,” Elliott said. “Before this incident, there were 87 children at that facility from outside Baldwin, while there were only 83 of our kids.”

Elliott said he’d like to see some kind of written agreement in place where the other counties would have to pay their fair share to use the facility.

“Right now, we’re providing this regional service for free,” Elliott said, “and it is all being put on the taxpayers of Baldwin County.”

Commissioner Frank Burt agreed with Elliott.

“Baldwin County taxpayers are subsidizing what Mobile County taxpayers should be paying for,” Burt said. “If they’re not paying, we need to stop having their children up there.”

While the program does receive nearly $3 million in Medicaid reimbursements to help provide services and teach the children necessarily life skills like hygiene and behavioral therapies, Elliott said it still costs the county nearly $80 per day per child.

With the average stay of a juvenile being 149 days, that would mean a cost of nearly $12,000 per child to the county over the course of their stay there.

Commissioner Skip Gruber said he would like to see the county draw up contracts with the judges who are sending children to the facility that would include a vetting process to make sure “violent offenders” are not being placed there.

Baldwin Wilderness Facility Director Jennifer Lee told commissioners there were already criteria in place that they used to help screen potential problem juveniles from being placed there.

“We reject people all the time,” Lee said. “Once a judge recommends a juvenile to our facility, we have a review process and criteria that we use that helps us possibly catch issues that a judge or the court might not have picked up on. We have and do turn down juveniles on a regular basis because they don’t fit our criteria.”

Commission Chairman Tucker Dorsey said he’d still like to see further work done on the vetting process to help with safety concerns after the recent sexual assault at the facility.

“I think we’ve got some work to do to insure the safety of not only our employees, but the juveniles we house there as well,” Dorsey said.

The commission plans to take another look at the facility during its Jan. 26 work session, where it will likely tackle the issue of continued funding for the facility.