Medical Lake comes up empty in search for money to police Eastern State

The City of Medical Lake wants money from the state to help cover the cost of frequent police calls at Eastern State Hospital, which include numerous assaults by patients on staff and other patients.

It’s the kind of financial help that Lakewood, Washington, the city home to Western State Hospital, has received since 2010 through a special paragraph in the budget.

That paragraph, known as a proviso, doesn’t mention Eastern State Hospital while sending $552,000 to Lakewood for mid-2015 through mid-2017to support a detective, a patrolman and a community service officer in that city’s police department to deal with calls at Western State.

For most years since 2005, such provisos sent Lakewood $45,000 for “police services provided by the city at Western State Hospital and adjacent areas,” budget documents show. The exception was 2009, when the state went through major budget cuts in the face of the recession. But in 2010, provisos not only restored that $45,000 but added another $231,000 per year to the city for three law enforcement officers. Both appropriations have continued through succeeding budgets.

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said he agrees with the city the state should pitch in, because answering calls at Eastern is “a major drain” on the city’s assigned deputy. Hundreds of assaults are reported each year at the hospital, he said.

Knezovich also is seeking money from the state to cover the cost of overtime for officers who searched for Western State escapee Anthony Garver earlier this month, which he recently estimated at $11,000. In 2009, when a patient escaped from an Eastern State excursion to the Interstate Fair, Knezovich sent the state a bill for some expenses connected to the search, and received some money.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Social and Health Services said the agency hasn’t yet received a bill but “if the governor tells us to pay for it, we’ll find a way.”

Jaime Smith, spokeswoman for Gov. Jay Inslee, said the office will review the bill when it arrives. “Until we receive an invoice, it’s hard to speculate how the costs will be divvied up,” she said.

Doug Ross, Medical Lake city administrator, said city officials aren’t asking for the same yearly assistance as Lakewood. Medical Lake’s contract for deputies from Spokane County totals $852,000.

But for the last four years, the city has asked DSHS, the attorney general, the governor and the Legislature for some money to cover some of those costs.

It has come away empty handed, although the reasons for denial vary, Ross said. DSHS has said it does not pay for police services at its facilities, as the money to Lakewood does not come out of the agency’s budget, thanks to the proviso.

The attorney general’s office has said the state is under no legal obligation to pay for the policing. Also true, Ross said, but it’s under no obligation to pay for it at Western State, either.

Inslee is “open to that conversation” about money for Medical Lake to help cover policing costs, Smith, his spokeswoman, said. But legislators from the area could advocate for a similar proviso.

Some local lawmakers said Medical Lake’s request has been considered but has not made the final cut in budget talks.

“I agree that they should be getting help from the state,” Sen. Mike Baumgartner, the Republican whose 6th Legislative District includes Medical Lake. But in this case, Eastern State may suffer financially from being better run than its West Side counterpart, he said.

“Western State has been such a debacle. In some respects, it’s getting rewarded for its problems” with additional financial help, he said

There are a limited number of special projects or programs a legislator can add or keep in the budget, Baumgartner said, and his political capital in the last session went to keeping Lakeland Village open when some wanted it closed. Lakeland Village and Eastern State Hospital are separate entities, but to many legislators, they are lumped together for state support, he said. In previous years, much of the delegation’s efforts on the budget for local projects went into securing money for the new medical school on the Washington State University-Spokane campus.

Ross said he’s heard a litany of reasons why the state can’t provide financial help: It needs to find billions for public schools to satisfy a Supreme Court ruling; Spokane is getting money for the North Spokane freeway; and 2016 was a supplemental budget year in which new programs don’t usually get considered.

Still, he knows that there was money for some new things, like the $300,000 set aside for a pilot project in the Spokane area to help fight property crime.

“At this point, I’m not sure how the money gets secured,” he said.