Less than a year after the last battle, David Cutbirth is ready to fight again to keep the West Texas State School in Pyote.

With a drop in the oil and gas markets, the Monahans mayor said there's an even greater need for the Texas Youth Commission facility and the 153 jobs it provides.

"About the time we need jobs, they shut it down," Cutbirth said. "That's the damn state for you."

Cutbirth was upset over a recommendation in a report by the staff of the Sunset Advisory Commission, a state agency created to eliminate waste, duplication and inefficiency in government. The group called for the TYC facility, located 15 miles west of Monahans in Ward County, to be closed, citing a difficulty to keep the juvenile prison staffed.

Due to a lack of workers, the Pyote school is budgeted for 96 youth, even though it has 240 beds, the Sunset commission said in its report. It currently has 92 students. Closing it would save the state $9 million.

While the TYC responded to many recommendations in the Sunset report, such as opposing the call for it to be merged with the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, it didn't issue a direct response to the closure recommendation.

Calls to the West Texas school were forwarded to Jim Hurley, TYC director of public affairs, who said decisions would be made "at the appropriate time."

"We are certainly looking at the utilization of all the facilities," he said, "where we are today and where we are going."

The recommendations of the Sunset staff will be presented to its committee members, which include five representatives each from the state House and Senate. In January, the committee will vote to accept, reject or modify the recommendations. From there, Hurley said changes could be made through the legislature or within the agencies.

The West Texas State School has been under fire since two administrators were accused of sexually assaulting imprisoned male youth four years ago. Former assistant school superintendent Ray Brookins and former principal John Paul Hernandez are both awaiting trial on multiple felony counts.

"There were a couple of bad apples," Cutbirth said. "But that's not an indictment of the kind of school they've run out here for the past 25 years."

The Sunset report directs that a master plan for facilities be directed that will keep youth close to home and in facilities near an available workforce. It said the Pyote school and the Victory Field facility in Vernon don't meet this criteria.

But Cutbirth sees the plan as a "backhanded" way for the same people who earlier tried to shut down the school to get their way. After a fight, the TYC announced in February that the West Texas State School would stay open through at least September 2009, while it closed the Sheffield Boot Camp in Pecos County. He said people like Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, won't stop until they close the school.

"We will fight 'em," Cutbirth said. "Maybe not like Churchill on the beaches and on the cliffs, but we will fight 'em as hard as we can."

Lawmakers are contemplating a proposal to close the TYC and fold its operations into Texas' juvenile probation system.

"We have one broken system that's wasteful in spending, that's top-heavy, and that houses juveniles in remote locations, far from home. "And then we have juvenile probation, which seems to work," Whitmire told The Dallas Morning News in Tuesday's editions. "It's so apparent to me that we need to try something completely different."

With 2,200 youth offenders, the TYC oversees a fraction of Texas' juvenile criminals in its large, remote prisons. The question facing state leaders is whether it's more cost-effective and better for offenders to serve closer to home - as those in the juvenile probation department do.

Some say it's too early to write off the agency.

On Monday, juvenile justice advocates and TYC officials testified before a state panel in opposition to its recommendation to combine the youth prison system and Texas' Juvenile Probation Commission. The debate could reach the Legislature early next year.

"There's a lot of concern that, with another major reorganization, the needs of kids and their families will really be lost in the shuffle," said Isela Gutierrez, juvenile justice coordinator for the nonprofit Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. "It's too early to point to the concept of a merger and wave a victory flag."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.