Detention Services makes $66.1M budget ask amid 40% overcapacity in Spokane jail

(The Center Square) – As Spokane County inches toward completing its 2025 budget amid competing tax proposals and revenue shortfalls, Detention Services presented its $66.1 million proposal on Monday.

The budget request follows directives from the Board of County Commissioners to plan for a relatively flat year in terms of revenue. The commissioners are asking each department to aim for a proposal that matches this year’s expenditures due to the shortfalls on top of rising costs.

Don Hooper, chief of Detention Services, and Finance Manager Bryce Miller ran the commissioners through the department’s request on Monday. While the commissioners said to shoot low, the department proposed a $60.7 million budget with $5.4 million in additional requests.

The $66.1 million request is roughly 8.9% more than the $60.7 million budgeted for 2024.

“Everything but the last line item [of the budget summary] are what we consider fixed costs, uncontrollables,” Miller said, “because they’re either contracts or they’re employees; so, 93% of our budget is uncontrollable.”

Hooper attributed the difference between the additional requests and target budget to positions and programs the county would have to cut to meet the goal; without them, the department would have cut 18 of its current custody officers and 29 vacancies, among other things.

The lack of those 18 officers could add around 34,000 overtime hours to the workload of others. Hooper said this would ultimately prove more expensive than retaining the officers instead.

Matching the 2024 budget would also force the department to cut several non-mandated inmate programs, such as Work Release and Alcoholics Anonymous. He said that without additional funding, they would lose five more employees, forcing the county to eliminate the programs.

The department’s other requests include additional funding for its medical services contract, several recently hired employees, overtime pay and increases to liability insurance, among other items.

“The only services that we could give up at this point would be all the programs,” Hooper said, “and we’ve already reduced it so much over the last four years.”

The stress on Detention Services isn’t unique as other departments are also facing constraints; however, the outcome of the county’s Juvenile Detention Facilities and Jails Sales Tax renewal is a contributing factor in that it provides around $16 million annually to the department.

The county is legally required to fund nearly all of Detention Services aside from some inmate programs. If voters were to opt against the tax renewal, it would exacerbate the constraints of other departments while potentially limiting the operational capacity of Detention Services.

Some at the county are concerned that the renewal could fail as the city of Spokane vies for its own sales tax proposal, athough that’s an increase while the county’s is a renewal. This coincides with a push to fund a new jail after the failure of a tax measure that would have done so last year.

Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels and others have raised alarms about the lack of capacity at the current jails and juvenile facilities, though this renewal wouldn’t fund new facilities. Hooper presented data on Monday showing the current average daily population sitting at 862 inmates.

In the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, the daily population averaged around 960 inmates. In 2020, that went down to 732. While the average has gone up about 18% since 2020, it’s still 10.2% less than recorded in 2019, according to the data presented.

Hooper attributed the difference to the reduction of several U.S. Marshals and Department of Corrections inmates that the department previously oversaw. Still, the jail in downtown Spokane currently houses around 650 inmates, about 40% over the intended capacity, he said.

“At 650 or 660 [inmates],” Hooper said, “we are pushing at the seams.”

The commission will continue to develop the 2025 budget over the coming weeks and months; while Detention Services forwarded its requests, not all are guaranteed to receive funding.