” To Proposition 2 Is Vote For Jails

Spokane County voters are being asked to approve a 10th-of-a-penny sales tax increase to lock up more criminals.

Little-known Proposition 2 on the Nov. 7 ballot would raise an estimated $12 million for bigger adult and juvenile jails.

The jails are too crowded and county coffers are stretched too thin to hold violent and chronic offenders accountable, according to law enforcement officials.

“The costs and impacts to our community because of crime have grown faster than our ability to deal with them,” says Sheriff John Goldman.

“This offers us a booster shot to catch up and provide the resources to detain both youthful and adult offenders who shouldn’t be out there on the streets.”

A simple majority vote is needed for passage.

If approved, the three-year tax increase would add a dime to every $100 purchase - food, medicine and rent excluded.

The cost to the average Spokane family of four would be $14 to $19 a year, according to the Washington Research Council.

While no organized opposition has emerged so far, one critic, businessman Duane Alton, predicts a skeptical response from a taxweary public.

Alton’s view: Commissioners already have enough money to build bigger jails. To get it, they just have to slash less important programs.

“The money is there right now,” Alton says. “Law enforcement should come before needle exchange and public parks - before anything. It needs to be No. 1.”

Backers of Proposition 2, however, have some reason for optimism.

In 1990, Spokane County voters approved a similar measure to raise money for more police, judges and prosecutors. The following year, voters increased the sales tax from 7.9 percent to the current 8.0 percent to build the new arena.

Responding to jail and detention center overcrowding across the state, the Legislature took action earlier this year to allow counties to ask voters for a sales tax increase.

Spokane joins five other counties - Benton, Franklin, Walla Walla, Yakima and Thurston - in making the ballot box pitch this fall. Others should follow suit in the spring.

Goldman hopes to use some of the sales-tax money to relieve pressures on his jail.

Designed and staffed to safely house 519 inmates, the lockup now claims an average population of 555.

In recent months, the crowd behind bars has periodically surged well above the average, forcing inmates to sleep on desks or the floor.

Juvenile justice chief Tom Davis has wrestled with an even thornier problem. For a couple of years, the 65-bed juvenile detention center has played a sort of musical chairs. Almost daily, judges decide which young lawbreaker should be released early to prevent overcrowding.

For the same reason, hundreds of offenders are getting arrested for felonies but being immediately returned to the streets. Kids on probation who thumb their noses at court orders often go unpunished, Davis says.

He hopes Election Day brings an end to three years of bad luck. Three times during that period, voters rejected bond issues to increase property taxes to expand the juvenile detention center.

In the interim, Davis keeps hearing complaints about the juvenile justice system’s inability to hold kids accountable for their crimes.

“I can’t figure out the public,” he says.

“The system is about to break,” says Goldman. “We’re Band-Aiding everything.”

Money raised by Proposition 2 must be spent to build and run county correctional facilities and related programs, such as inmate work crews.

If the measure passes, county commissioners intend to rely heavily on the Law and Justice Council, a criminal-justice advisory group, for spending recommendations.

While few specifics are available, the council’s executive committee put these projects on its wish list:

Beef up the Spokane County Jail by adding 200 more bunks to existing cells, expanding the booking area and hiring 10 more correctional officers.

Build a 160-bed dormitory at Geiger Corrections Center near the airport, to be used as a rehabilitation-minded work-release center for low-risk adult offenders.

Add a maximum-security wing to the juvenile detention center and repair the facility’s deteriorating air-handling system and plumbing.

Lease up to 25 long-term beds at a planned regional juvenile lockup at the old Interlake School complex at Medical Lake.

Create additional work crews for juvenile and adult offenders. The supervised crews provide free labor in the form of litter control, weeding, grass mowing and minor construction.

The Geiger work-release center would cost about $2.5 million to build, and the juvenile construction projects would cost millions more.

Goldman and Davis, however, caution that all of this is preliminary because some costs haven’t been determined and formal feasibility studies are needed.

Even so, the Law and Justice Council emphasizes cost savings.

Take, for example, the idea of building a satellite jail at Geiger.

Proponents say inmates housed there would use the minimum-security prison camp’s dining hall, kitchen and recreational facilities - keeping costs down. It would be cheaper to house each inmate than the maximum-security jail because fewer officers would be required to supervise the population.

Adding more officers to the jail is expensive, but Goldman says it accomplishes two goals: It allows more offenders to be safely housed there, and it virtually eliminates the need to pay overtime.

The tab for overtime pay to jailers will top $300,000 this year, according to the sheriff.

Critics, however, are quick to point out that any new facilities and programs bankrolled via the sales-tax measure require long-term staffing - and those costs are not covered after three years.

After that point, county commissioners must either pick up the tab out of the general fund or extend the tax.

, DataTimes