The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About*Other - Sheriff & JailRyan Rectenwald Undersheriff Office 509-754-2011 ext. 2017 Cell 509-750-7304 rectenwald@grantcountywa.gov Ken Jones Chief Deputy Field Operations Office 509-754-2011 ext. 2018 Cell 509-750-7303 kjones@grantcountywa.gov T. Dustin Canfield Chief Deputy Special Operations Office 509-754-2011 ext. 2021 Cell 509-237-8610 dcanfield@grantcountywa.gov Joe Kriete Chief Deputy Corrections Office 509-754-2011 ext. 2026 Cell 509-750-2710 jkriete@grantcountywa.gov Darrik Gregg Chief Deputy Emergency Management Office 509-754-2011 ext. 2001 Cell 509-237-3552 dgregg@grantcountywa.gov Tracy Williams Administrative Assistant Office 509-754-2011 ext. 2014 Cell 509-237-2278 twilliams@grantcountywa.gov Tom Jones, Sheriff July 13, 2021 Cindy Carter, Chair Danny E. Stone, Vice -Chair Rob Jones, Member Board of County Commissioners Re: Proposed Closure of Work Rel Dear Commissioners, Dated this day of Beard of County Cornmi ion Grant County, Washington Approve Disap2toyg Dist #14D't # 1 Dist #2t # 2 Dist #3Dist # 3 Dist # 1 Dist # 2 Dist # 3 Ab 2024- Since March 1, 2020; the facility formerly known as Work Release was closed. The reasons at the time were due to short staffing and COVID-19 complications. Not only were we short 20% staffing, due to staffing vacancies and FMLA, but we were also rapidly reducing our inmate population for qualified inmates to be housed in the facility due to the pandemic. We continued to evaluate the closure of the facility for over the past year. We evaluated the closure monthly and we still do not have a plan to re -open. Currently we are down 22% staffing (13 vacancies of 59 staff members) on the Corrections side and have been trying to get employees hired to fill those vacancies. We have been working with Civil Service to continue entry level testing for Corrections staff for over the past year. We continue to go through each established list of candidates with minimal successful hirings. Our office will continue with the testing processes to establish eligibility lists to fill our vacancies. Until we can get those vacancies filled, we do not have the minimum number of employees to staff two separate facilities. Most of the time we are operating at minimum staffing levels at the one facility, the main jail. When COVID-19 hit us in early 2020, correctional facilities nationwide were forced to reduce their population by 50+%. The Grant County jail was no different. We established restrictions and only allowed the worst offenders to be incarcerated. By keeping our population reduced to minimize the risk of outbreaks, our population_ rnb�^:.TC+:"A.T.YCbZfsw:.arvl>L'.CuzN.R'Y'�.GvcnLi•6 Jam+^.xY.• :r_sxm.srrlSl:dsv. ' R!,"C;! •A hl E ?4'• P.O. Box 37 . Ephrata, WA 98823,6 www.grantcouiitywa.govlsl•ieriff 500-754-2011 ext. 2001 � 500-754-2058 Facsimile Administrative Offices in the Law & Justice Center, 35 C St NW, Ephrata, Was 1/ 12/2018 JUL ' ti "\ i � k� f S y 1 �. �� s P i, Z i� 4 '�, s � :i: L> 1,_t •a., became the higher classified inmates. We no longer were taking the minimum classification type offenders and were forced to keep taking the high medium to maximum classified offenders. These types of offenders are the ones to who commit crimes of violence against persons. Most of the driving offenders or property crime offenders were immediately released from the facility to make room for quarantine areas or more violent offenders. The design of the Work Release facility being an "open dorm" type living area only, keep us from housing those types of inmates together. There is too much of a risk of inmate -on -inmate assaults and inmate -to -staff assaults. There is no way to isolate any inmates at the Work Release facility who pose a threat or assaultive behavior. Currently we have no inmates in custody at the Grant County jail who would classify to be housed at the minimum -security Work Release facility. When the Work Release facility was open in 1999, it was designed and built as a minimum - security facility. It was able to house offenders who were on a "Work Release" status. This meant offenders would go to work during the daytime and return to the facility to spend their nights there. There were federal funding sources to help the operations of this type of facility in the late 90's and early 2000's. During those times, we also had a litter crew that would go our and pick up trash in the county. This was funded by a federal grant to pay for equipment and staffing. g That grant had diminished over time and is no longer available. As the grants dried up, we were not able to keep some employees. Even though we kept the name as the "Work Release" facilit , Y we no longer operated it as a typical "Work Release" facility. We no longer had the staffing or the funding to operate the programs. The facility evolved to a minimum classification jail. We housed various minimum classified inmates to finish out sentences. We did have very few work release inmates come through as time went on. We operated our Electronic Home Monitoring program out of this facility as well. Today, we do not have any inmates who classify to be housed at this facility. If we changed the classification requirements, we would need to double our staffing at the facility to closely monitor, by direct supervision, the inmates housed there. Because of our 22% shortage of staffing, we do not have the ability to do so. As we all know, there is a new jail in sight for Grant County. We are hoping to break ground on the new jail in the upcoming year. The location of the new jail will be at the Work Release site. This means there will be major construction around the Work Release facility as well as inside. With contractors and equipment moving around outside and inside of the facility, this poses a high-risk security issue if the facility were to have inmates housed. The risk of tools, contraband or any other types of items being left inside the facility for inmates to access would be extremely dangerous for other inmates or staff. As the Sheriff, I am not willing to take this risk for the inmates or my staff. We have been attempting to fill our openings in our Corrections Division for over a year. When they are filled, these openings will adequately staff our current jail needs. These openings will not be able to adequately staff two facilities with the types of inmates we have housed. If we plan on starting construction on a new facility in the next year at the Work Release site and we have not been able to adequately higher employees to fill the current openings for over thep ast year, I do not believe it will be fiscally responsible to open the Work Release facility for a short period of time only to close it down again for the construction process. Based on the explanations above, I believe it is in the best interest of the Grant County Sheriff's Office and Grant County as a whole to permanently close the Work Release facility and focus on moving into a new jail once the construction is completed at the Work Release site. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Respectfully Submitted, Tom Jones, Sheriff