Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
Klickitat County Commissioners met yesterday, and received word from their lobbyist, Zak Kennedy, that things could get even worse for Washington state finances. He said the state’s Attorney General was suing Adams County for cooperating with ICE by checking information about prisoners in their jail against a federal list and notifying them of the results:
“The Department of Justice, Federal DOJ, just came out backing Adams County in this little tiff here in Washington State. The reason I’m bringing this up — because it really, really seems like the actual federal government may consider pulling Washington State’s and any funding grants, matching funds, things like that, which would take things into a bigger death spiral.”
Department of Corrections chief Bill Frantz reported that he had previously been short two employees, but now he’s lost a third to a year in the military. When Chair Ron Ihrig said that meant he’s lost a shift, Frantz outlined how tough the situation was:
“What that means, our officers are working a lot of overtime. They’re still not calling in sick unless they’re very sick. They know their colleagues want days off. They know they have family plans. And so if they call in sick, the shift goes vacant, which isn’t an option. You can’t have one person in a jail and take people to court. You can’t have one person in a jail and do emergency transports. Yesterday I had to transport to Spokane and back. And we have another one scheduled this week.”
Frantz said he would be advertising for casual workers, though he needs full-time people, with the hope he could persuade some of the casual workers to stay.
On the positive side, Commissioner Lori Zoller said that the committee that awards funds from landfill gas revenue had approved a request from the Dallesport Water District:
“Dallesport Water District had needed some new ATEC vessels for quite some time. The bid that they put in that they would like to have was $185,000 and we were able to secure that between the county and the PUD. And tomorrow I’ll be attending a meeting to present that to them for their approval, hopefully.”
The ATEC system filters out iron and manganese from the Dallesport drinking water.