Geiger soon to get Kootenai County inmates

Within the next month, Spokane’s Geiger Corrections Center will start taking inmates from Kootenai County.

The Kootenai County commission approved a contract Tuesday that seals the bistate agreement touted as a way to ease overcrowding in Kootenai County while lowering costs for Spokane County.

“I think it’s great any time counties can work together,” commission Chairman Rick Currie said. “We are all in this together.”

Kootenai County Jail Commander Travis Chaney said Geiger will set aside as many as 30 beds for male inmates. Kootenai County will pay $61.40 per inmate each day to house sentenced offenders at Geiger.

The county already has an agreement with Ferry County, Wash., where it pays $50 a day to house inmates.

Kootenai County will continue to send inmates to the Ferry County Jail, which is about 180 miles from Coeur d’Alene. Geiger will house inmates serving shorter sentences.

“It gives the Sheriff’s Department some flexibility,” Chaney said.

As of Tuesday morning, the 325-bed Kootenai County Jail housed 320 inmates in addition to 34 inmates who were primarily in Ferry County, Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.

Geiger, which houses minimum- and medium-security inmates, is run by Spokane County and is supposed to be self-sufficient by charging daily rates – lower than the Spokane County Jail’s – to jurisdictions to house offenders. But 2006 was the first time in five years that Geiger fully supported itself through inmate fees. In the five years before that, Geiger lost $1.8 million.

Most of Geiger’s population, which is a maximum of about 610 inmates, comes through the Spokane County Jail. The center also has contracts to house female inmates from the federal prison system and state parole violators.