AUSTIN – The Texas Youth Commission will lay off 100 people and eliminate 330 more vacant positions, news that came the day after an influential state panel recommended merging the scandal-torn agency with the state's juvenile probation system.

The dismissals announced Thursday are the result of continuing reforms at the dramatically downsized TYC, not the Sunset Commission's Wednesday night recommendation. With just 2,400 youth offenders, the TYC is half the size it was before a 2007 sexual abuse scandal that prompted an overhaul.

"We have made some really tough but good decisions to have a smart staffing plan," TYC Executive Director Cherie Townsend said, noting that the agency may soon consider closing some of its facilities.

The cuts will not affect the staff-to-inmate ratio at state lock-ups, Townsend said. Nor will they be the last round of layoffs.

The staffing cuts and consolidation debate hinge on one question: Where is it most appropriate and cost-effective to rehabilitate juvenile offenders? The probation department, which oversees 95 percent of juvenile offenders, does all its work at the local level. The TYC houses its youth in mostly large, remote prisons.

The TYC "is too large an agency for such a small enrollment," said Sen. John Whitmire, the Houston Democrat who first proposed abolishing the agency and folding it into juvenile probation. "What I look forward to next is for them to quit supporting facilities that are not justified by the current needs."

On Wednesday night, lawmakers on the Sunset Commission, which reviews state agencies and recommends reform legislation, voted 6-5 to fold the TYC into the juvenile probation department. The decision, which will come before Texas lawmakers for a vote in the coming months, is controversial.

Consolidation supporters say they've given the the agency two years to improve operations after a widespread sexual abuse scandal. After a legislative overhaul, a revolving door of executives and a costly restructuring, they say they remain unconvinced.

But opponents – including TYC executives and the juvenile justice experts who are so often critical of them – believe the agency shouldn't be written off yet. And probation officials fear their effective system will become less so when it's forced to swallow a struggling agency.

"We are on a path to reform," Townsend said. "In my experience, the best way to accomplish that reform is to maintain separate agencies."