Butler County is set to receive $2.075 million in reassigned money from the state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program to build a garage for emergency services and district attorney office vehicles and equipment.

County commissioners on Wednesday approved a contract with the state budget office to reassign grant money from projects that didn’t come to fruition to build the garage at the 911 center located off McCune Drive near the Sunnyview complex.

Plans call for the garage to be completed by fall 2027, said Mark Gordon, county economic development and planning chief.

The county plans to use RACP grants reallocated from other projects as the match for a $2 million grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development for the garage.

The RACP grant-funded projects that never came to fruition are: $1.6 million for a police and ROTC building project at Slippery Rock University and $475,000 for a Jeep museum once planned by Experience Butler County.

The commissioners ratified an application to subdivide two vacant buildings in the Sunnyview complex from the parking lot in case the county decides to sell the buildings.

The buildings used to house the Butler Township district court and the county Area Agency on Aging office, which have been relocated. The county no longer needs the buildings, which are “not in the best of shape,” said Leslie Osche, commissioners chairwoman.

In other business, commissioners approved the 2027-28 needs-based budget for the county’s Children and Youth Services department. The budget includes an allocation of nearly $10 million from the state Office of Children, Youth and Families for out of home placements of juveniles by CYS and the juvenile probation department.

The state allocation is $9,976,811. During the 2025-26 fiscal year, CYS spent $5,620,767 and juvenile probation spent $3,810,512 for out of home placements, according to CYS executive director Charles Johns.

Osche asked Johns about the budgetary impacts of the placement of children with complex needs.

“That, right now, is our biggest driver. We have some placements that are well in excess of $1,000 a day,” Johns said.

In the past, he said he thought $300 a day was expensive. Shelter care that used to cost $100 a day now costs $500 a day, he said.

Commissioner Kevin Boozel asked Johns for an example of an expensive placement. Johns said one type of placement provides one staff member for one juvenile.

“Some of the behaviors of those children necessitate that,” Johns said.

During the past year, he said county staff and provider staff sustained minor injuries while caring for a juvenile for a little over a week.