A compliance auditor’s finding has placed the operation of Ward County’s juvenile detention center in jeopardy unless it hires more staff, Ward County commissioners learned Tuesday.

Jail Commander Paul Olthoff told the commission an auditor found the juvenile detention center noncompliant in a section of the Prison Rape Elimination Act related to staffing.

Olthoff said the department has challenged the auditor’s decision and is waiting for a Department of Justice opinion.

“Then we’ll get into talks, and there are several different things that we can do. But, for the budget, I think what they’re going to say is we have to add three people,” he said.

He noted it could take as long as 180 days to resolve the issue, although the hope is to end it quickly. The commission has begun hearing from department heads regarding setting the county’s 2026 preliminary budget.

Olthoff said if PREA requires three extra officers to cover the shifts, it would add about $285,000 to the budget. The detention center averages four juvenile residents a month.

Juvenile detention moved into its existing quarters in 2016. The following year, a “frequently asked question” – essentially a memorandum from the Department of Justice – related to PREA set out a requirement for direct supervision, Olthoff said.

“That facility over there was built as indirect supervision. The difference – direct supervision you are inside the pod with the juveniles. So, our PREA auditor is basically going to give us a noncompliance on this standard because we don’t have enough staff to post a person inside a pod every time that there’s over two inmates walking around the day room. There has to be an officer in there. We just don’t have the staff to do that,” he said. “They may force us to either add three people or close down.”

He said the state does not want to see the center close because it is only one of three in the state, with the others in Grand Forks and Bismarck.

Under indirect supervision, staff check on juveniles every 15 minutes. The center also has monitoring cameras, Olthoff said.