State officials have granted Baltimore County a 90-day extension to find a home for its first detoxification center for teen-agers, a decision that allows the county to hold onto a $450,000 grant it was ready to return to the state.
Peter F. Luongo, director of the Maryland Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration, sent the county a letter yesterday saying that it has until Sept. 30 to find a site or lose the money.
County administrators said earlier this week they would forfeit the grant Sunday, the end of the fiscal year.
The terms of the grant stipulated that it had to be allocated for the treatment center by June 30.
But administrators said they couldn't do that without a site, and negotiations on the building they favored had bogged down.
Administrators reversed their position Wednesday, saying that if the state would allow them to delay allocating the money, they would not return it.
"We obviously are pleased," Dr. Michelle Leverett, county health officer, said of the letter from the state. "There is clearly a need for this type of service."
County health officials have targeted the Rosewood Center, a state-owned facility for the developmentally disabled in Owings Mills, as a possible home for the 15- to 20-bed teen treatment center. Patients would stay at the facility for 30 to 90 days.
"That arrangement works well for us," said Elise Armacost, a spokeswoman for County Executive C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, referring to the extension. "We would really like to put that building at Rosewood."
Because the county has no residential facilities for teen-age drug abusers, some are sent as far as the Eastern Shore for treatment.
Right Turn of Maryland, a private, nonprofit agency, was selected by the county to run the center.
The agency operates five treatment centers at the Rosewood Center off Reisterstown Road near Owings Mills Boulevard - a detoxification program for adults, two halfway houses, a DWI facility and a transitional living house.
The purchase of a building at Rosewood was delayed when Right Turn learned that the site it wanted was about to be bought by a third party.
As a result, negotiations had to begin anew with a different owner.