Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
Klickitat County Corrections Director Bill Frantz had some sobering financial numbers for county commissioners at yesterday’s meeting.
“We’re a 49-bed jail that has an average population of 33. Given the Aramark increase of 240 percent in 2025, and the expected raise again in 2026, at least by the consumer price index, I project the food cost in 2026 to be $289,230. With our 2025 budget of $165,000, it gives us a $124,230 shortfall.”
Frantz said he’d had a number of suggestions from local residents, but that he is operating under some mandatory state guidelines.
“We are required by law to provide one hot meal per day. We are required by law to have an average 2500 calories, and we have to reed them three times a day. There’s religious diets, there are medical diets that have to be addressed. So you can’t just go out and buy five TV dinners from Walmart and drop them off with a microwave.”
He also said the county needed to renegotiate some of its contracts. For example, he said, the Washington State Department of Corrections says it costs $82.34 per day to house a prisoner. And the city of Bingen had 302 prisoner-days in the first six months of the year. If it kept up at that pace, the city would have 604 prisoner days this year. At $82.34 a day, Kickitat County’s cost to house those prisoners would be more than $49,700 for the year. Currently, Bingen pays $7,649 a year.