After nearing a million dollars a year a few years ago, out of home placement costs are trending down slightly in Mower County Corrections.

Corrections Director Steve King updated the county board Tuesday morning that out of home placement costs for juveniles who’ve committed crimes are predicted to come in at around $700,000 to $750,000 by the end of the year, but the issue remains a costly one with no easy solutions.

“We struggle with it,” King said. “We struggle with it everyday, because … these are real families who struggle, these are real kids who struggle. These are also real crimes [that] are taking place.”

Corrections saw a spike in out of home placement costs in 2011 and 2012, when annual costs reached $938,171. But the numbers have since dipped to $790,394 in 2013 and $848,743 in 2014.

“We’re trending down, which is good,” King said.

Through July 1, placement costs had been at $305,245.

“It’s certainly a very complex social problem that we have,” King said. “I see trends. Trends are going down. I’m happy with that.”

And while King told the board he expects to be near $700,000 by year’s end, he and County Attorney Kristen Nelsen said a few juveniles currently in the system could drive those numbers.

“We have some pretty tough kids right now,” King said.

King and Nelsen told the board of a juvenile who broke out of handcuffs recently and had to be transported to a placement in a deputy’s car with a second deputy car following behind.

Even though placements pose high costs, King says he only controls about a third of the placement costs in his office. He has little control over who is placed, as judges, law enforcement and the county attorney’s office often dictate placements. King’s office only has control over those assigned to placements through probation.

Typically, juveniles are placed in foster homes, sheltered facilities and detention facilities, according to King. All feature some form of programming.

Corrections’ juvenile probation officers and other staff meet the first Wednesday of each month, and King said that’s helped as they can discuss juveniles who are “high fliers” repeatedly in the system to potentially find different ways of dealing with them.

“The probation officers aren’t heavy handed,” King said. “They understand there’s a budget and a cost to this. We always just try to be responsible.”

Nelsen credited King’s staff for working to get to the core cause of juveniles’ issues. Her office also works with many of the same juveniles, and she told the board the youths worked their way to a detention facility.

“These kids had been everywhere else,” Nelsen said. “We had tried everything else.”

The Minnesota Department of Corrections releases a snapshot every Dec. 31 of the number of juveniles on probation in each county. Mower had 134 in 2012, 114 in 2013 and 112 in 2014.

As of Monday, the county had 197 juveniles on probation and 72 youths in the diversion program, which addresses first time offenders or juveniles that committed small offenses.

The number of juveniles placed has also decreased. In 2012, 90 juveniles were placed in 186 placement events. That’s compared to 80 juveniles in 179 placement events in 2013, and 78 placed in 151 placement events in 2014. Thus far in 2015, 49 juveniles have been placed in 93 event.

Juveniles are often placed several times. King told the board one juvenile was placed nine different times in 2014.

Several juveniles have been involved in recent home and vehicle burglaries, and Nelsen reiterated what Austin Police Chief Brian Krueger has been saying: Lock your doors and make sure your valuables are secure.

“It really would help us out tremendously if people would just lock their stuff,” Nelsen said. “Lock your car doors, lock their houses.”