By Phil Ferolito
Yakima Herald-Republic
YAKIMA COUNTY, Wash. — In a welcome turnabout for Yakima County, the Department of Law and Justice stands to receive an additional $600,000 from the Department of Corrections in 2014.
The new revenue is over and above an additional $500,000 allocated to Law and Justice in the recently proposed $56 million general fund budget for 2014.
Yakima County Commissioner Kevin Bouchey announced the additional funds — which come from new contracts the Yakima County jail has to house inmates from other communities — at a Thursday morning meeting of the Law and Justice committee. The cross-departmental effort is trying to rein in the costs of the criminal justice system, which consumes 82 percent of the county budget.
The additional $600,000 is to help backfill a $1.6 million loan Corrections took from Law and Justice this year just to stay afloat.
“Our commitment was to refill that bucket as we are able to,” Bouchey said.
Law and Justice also will receive an additional $586,000 in 2014 from the voter-approved three-tenths of a percent tax to pay for law enforcement efforts in communities across the county, for a total infusion of nearly $1.7 million.
Offices that make up Law and Justice are the prosecutor, public defenders, courts and county clerk.
Corrections ran into financial trouble at the end of 2010, when it lost contracts to house inmates from several King County cities. The crisis led the county to lay off workers and close its new jail on Pacific Avenue, which opened only briefly. In addition to the $1.6 million from Law and Justice, Corrections also received another $2.3 million from a road levy this year to maintain operations.
Since the jail’s financial crisis, commissioners have insisted that the Corrections Department budget become separate from the general fund in order to improve accountability.
Now, new contracts with other cities, coupled with improved cost-efficiency at the jail, are boosting jail revenue. And some of the extra revenue will be used to repay the lending departments, Corrections Director Ed Campbell said.
“We are doing better financially, but we still have outstanding obligations to those departments,” he said. “I’m optimistic that we’ll see revenue continue to grow, and that we’ll continue to get more contracts.”
Now, Bouchey wants the various offices under Law and Justice to come up with specific projects that would be funded with the extra money.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ken Ramm said his office needs more attorneys, and that budget constraints have reduced the number of attorneys and prevented pay raises. As a result, turnover has been high and serious cases are more often landing in the hands of younger, less-experienced deputy prosecutors.
“Normally, we would like to see them have at least four years’ experience,” Ramm said.
Yakima County Court Clerk Kim Eaton said she needs long-term funding for two assistants in her office who are being funded by one-time money in 2014.
Court Administrator Harold Delia said he’d like to see the extra money spent in partnerships with area cities to create gang intervention and prevention programs. He said Law and Justice is overwhelmed and efforts need to be made to reduce the number of people coming into the system.
Agreeing with Delia, Bouchey told the group that county commissioners want to see a plan that would reduce crime, and subsequently the number of offenders coming into the system.
Either way, the various offices will continue to work on ideas and report back when they meet again next month.
The county has seen a decline in cases taken to trial after a record-high year in 2009 with 137, and a less congested court system. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, court administrators and judges worked together to form new rules to move cases through the system quicker by setting stricter standards for case filings and court calendar rules.
“We are seeing some positive change here,” Bouchey said. “We’re not going back to business as usual. We’re really wanting to identify some projects that truly can have some positive impacts on the system.”