Dallas County’s Juvenile Detention Center houses more than 400 juveniles a year, and a high percentage of them live within the city limits of Selma.

Due to proposed budget cuts from the state, the county is asking the city to help fund the center.

“We can’t continue to operate it the way we are operating it without some help from them,” said Kim Ballard, Dallas County Probate Judge and Commission Chairman. “We haven’t asked them to participate until this budget year. It became apparent that we couldn’t keep going the way we were going.”

Ballard said he gave Selma Mayor George Evans a proposal four to five months ago asking the city to pay $60,000 a year, which is an estimated 10 percent of the amount the county budgets for the center.

The county spends more than $600,000 a year on the center, according to Ballard. The center was opened in 2008 as an effort to save money on transporting and housing juveniles in other counties.

“We were renting space in a facility in Greensboro prior to building the detention center,” Ballard said. “It was costing us somewhere around $300,000 to $400,000 a year, and that’s including deputy transport over there and the actual out of pocket cost on meals and everything involved in housing an inmate.”

According to Selma City Council President Corey Bowie, the Public Safety Committee recommended the city to pay $30,000 and continue looking for available funding.

“We’re looking at it coming out of either the half-cent sales tax or the red light cameras,” Bowie said. “We have very limited funds, but we’re going to have to look and see what we can do.”

Bowie said the finance committee will meet Tuesday at 5 p.m., and funding the center will be part of the discussion.

“There is no resistance to funding the center because I know we have an obligation on behalf of the city that we definitely need to pay, but when we’re looking at the $60,000 there are other obligations that we have,” Bowie said. “I know they’re asking for only 10 percent, but as a council we’re going to have to look at it.”

Marcus Hannah, the center’s director, said without it, the city and county would have tremendous costs in transporting and housing inmates, as well as overtime for officers to drive them to other counties with available space in their center.

“The next closest facility is in Montgomery, so every time a kid commits a crime [an officer] would have to drive that kid all the way to Montgomery,” Hannah said. “They would also have to wait there another hour, so you’re looking at maybe two to a little over three hours that you would have officers away from your city that could be protecting the city.”

According to Ballard, most of the surrounding counties rent space in Dallas County’s center.

“Almost every county surrounding us, even Montgomery County while they were remodeling their detention center, rents space from us,” Ballard said. “It was a money saving [effort] and still is to the county.”

Ballard said he waited for several weeks to finalize the county budget, but he did not want to wait any longer. The budget was finalized without the $60,000 from the city.

“I didn’t have to, but I did,” Ballard said. “They’ve got a budget too, but they can’t balance a budget on my back.”