SCRANTON — Officials touted Tuesday a juvenile detention partnership between Lackawanna and three other counties as the best and most cost-effective option available to address a “crisis” marked by a statewide shortage of detention beds.
Commissioners Thom Welby, Bill Gaughan and Chris Chermak then unanimously approved a 20-year intergovernmental agreement formalizing the partnership between Lackawanna, Berks, Dauphin and Lehigh counties. Under the pact, each of the four partners will have guaranteed access to 10 juvenile detention beds at a Berks County facility targeted for reopening in the summer or fall of 2027.
Berks County will staff and operate the revived facility, which will house both males and females, with all four counties sharing operational and other costs. Lackawanna’s estimated share, about $2.6 million annually, will be defrayed by state reimbursements.
Berks County Chief Operations Officer Kevin Barnhardt, left, seated next to Berks County Deputy Chief Operations Officer Larry Medaglia, looks on during the commissioners meeting at the Lackawanna County Government Center Tuesday, February 24, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The long-term arrangement among the cooperating counties — endorsed Tuesday by Lackawanna County Judges James Gibbons and Frank Ruggiero, District Attorney Brian Gallagher, the commissioners and others, including Berks County officials — comes after Lackawanna County stopped in 2018 housing juvenile offenders at the male-only Scranton detention center it leased from Lackawanna College. The county has since relied on contracts with out-of-county facilities, including one as far away as Ohio, absorbing rising costs while grappling with surging demand for detention beds in a landscape with fewer and fewer available.
Between 2006 and 2021, 15 juvenile detention facilities closed in Pennsylvania and only 13 remained open in the state as of 2023, per figures county Chief Financial Officer David Bulzoni shared Tuesday. The county, which placed juvenile offenders in five different contracted detention centers in the 2024-25 fiscal year, experienced a 148% increase in juvenile detention costs from 2023 to 2025, Bulzoni said.
In terms of Lackawanna’s long-term finances, Bulzoni described the multicounty initiative as a favorable alternative to the status quo marked by escalating costs. It’s also a favorable alternative to the county establishing, staffing, maintaining and operating its own juvenile detention center, which Bulzoni described as cost “prohibitive.”
Access to the Berks County facility also should help curtail overtime and other costs for the county sheriff’s office tasked with transporting juvenile offenders to contracted detention facilities, most of which are farther away than Berks County, Sheriff Mark McAndrew said. His deputies conducted more than 120 transports in 2025, including about 25 that were overnight trips, he said, noting each transport requires two deputies.
Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher speaks during the commissioners meeting at the county government center Tuesday, February 24, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Officials praised the partnership for nonfinancial reasons, too, with Ruggiero calling Tuesday a “monumental day in juvenile justice” in the county while noting the design of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate offenders.
“With our fellow counties that have partnered with us and we’ve partnered with them, there (is) strength in numbers, because this facility is not only going to handle the detention-related needs,” the juvenile court judge said. “It’s going to also handle, probably more importantly, the treatment-related needs which are essential to the concepts of balanced and restorative justice.”
Berks County Deputy Chief Operations Officer Larry Medaglia said educational, licensed social worker and counseling services will be available at the reopened detention center, as well as medical, dental and mental health services.
Berks County Deputy Chief Operating Officer Larry Medaglia speaks during the commissioners meeting at the Lackwanna County Government Center Tuesday, February 24, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
“The idea here for juveniles is to get them out back into the community and be productive citizens, and we think this is the best way to do it,” he said.
In terms of public safety, including at local schools, Gallagher, the Lackawanna County district attorney, touted the Berks County facility as a prospective resource for detaining violent juvenile offenders. A lack of available beds at contracted facilities sometimes prevents the detention of juveniles who warrant it, such as those charged with violent crimes, he and others said.
“I can’t tell you the amount of times where we’ve had someone pleading guilty to a violent crime in juvenile court, or who was arrested on a Friday night, and on Monday morning they’re in school with an ankle bracelet on because there’s no detention beds,” Gallagher said. “And we have superintendents calling the police chief and calling my office saying ‘why is this kid in school? He just robbed somebody, he just hurt somebody.’ “
“So I can tell you on behalf of all law enforcement, specifically the chiefs of police, we are urging support and urging that the commissioners approve this regional partnership,” he continued, referencing the mental health and other services the facility will provide. “So we’re trying to make these kids whole. It’s not just detention, which is what we had when I started in the juvenile unit over a decade ago. … Any naysayer, anyone who says we shouldn’t do this, has no clue what they’re talking about and hasn’t been awake for the last five years here in Lackawanna County.”
Commissioners Welby, Gaughan and Chermak, who needed no convincing, echoed praise for the partnership before approving the agreement.
Prior to the vote, Ruggiero said he thinks the partnership will be a “model for regionalization and how to do it” moving forward.
“We are giving our young people an opportunity today to get their lives back, and their families’ lives back,” he said.