see, and operational cost modeling (which depends on all the other
information to inform that).
She answered if the project team is looking at ways to reduce costs of
construction in materials or construction methods, and stated they are, but
it is too early to determine some things without a design.
Scott Korthuis, Lynden City Mayor, was invited to speak and stated he has
been working on a letter with the City of Bellingham and small cities to
send to the Council about concerns the cities might have as they move
forward, and criteria (including enough capacity to not have booking
restrictions) they would ask for if they commit to more years. They also
recognize that we need a facility that encourages diversion rather than
incarceration, and part of that is the behavioral health center. They want to
build a jail that is efficient and designed to minimize staff and maximize
efficiency of the labor force that we have. They recognize that they will
likely need to negotiate on changes to the jail use agreement. The Finance
Advisory Board needs to get a number to the County first and give that to
the design team. Every two months they are losing $1.5 million in buying
power so they need to keep this moving quickly. He answered if the small
cities have a mechanism in mind to reinforce their ask for no booking
restrictions. He stated one of the hopes is that they will get either State or
Federal money to pay for the behavioral care center. Then, if additional cash
is opened up, the first thing they have to commit to is capacity. He spoke
about getting costs from the design team for adding beds as well.
Galloway spoke about what information she needs in order to set a budget
cap, including knowing that all the cities are on board, an update to the
interlocal, modest sales tax growth projections, and pending information on
potential cost savings. She stated whatever they set their cap at, it needs to
be within their financial means and needs to include the construction of a
behavioral care center in conjunction. She stated they also need to consider
demolition of the existing facility and short-term utilization of the work
center to build capacity if capacity is truly needed. She spoke about figuring
out the cap and then how they would spend that, and stated it is really
important that they leverage and prioritize the use of other County funds to
meet the commitment to services.
Councilmembers and the speakers discussed that the cities would be in
favor of more beds to address capacity needs and that there will need to be
compromise because of financial limitations, how they know what an
adequately sized jail looks like to avoid booking restrictions and that
recommendations should come through the jail capacity analysis, that the
IPRTF needs to see data on how existing diversion programs are working so
they can make educated decisions on which to fund to have less recidivism,
that not enough detail about specialized housing in the original jail capacity
