By Andy Porter
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
WALLA WALLA, Wash. — The Walla Walla County Jail, run by the county sheriff since territorial days, may be under new management in the future.
Walla Walla County commissioners this week opened a discussion on separating the county jail operations from the Sheriff’s Office, creating a corrections department directly under commissioners’ control.
Commission chairman Perry Dozier, who raised the topic, said it would resolve the issue of “dual leadership” of how the facility is now managed.
The discussion came less than a week after Keilen Harmon, the chief deputy for corrections, was dismissed by Sheriff John Turner on March 3. Dozier said Tuesday that Monday’s discussion “was probably precipitated to some degree by (Harmon’s) departure.”
Harmon, in an interview this morning, said he had approached Dozier in February about separating control of the jail from the Sheriff’s Office.
He said having the jail managed by a department head who reported directly to commissioners would provide transparency about how money is spent, ensuring that money budgeted for the jail is spent on the jail.
“Right now, the way it’s set up, the sheriff has total control over both budgets and if the jail saves money, he decides how that money is spent,” Harmon said. “If the jail needs cell doors and he needs cars, they get cars.”
Dozier said his thoughts about jail separation also were spurred by his experiences during his six years as a commissioner, especially with budget issues, as well as what Spokane County commissioners had done in 2013 when they took control of that county’s jail and another county correctional facility as part of plan to reform local criminal justice.
Speaking at a meeting Monday with fellow commissioners Jim Johnson and Jim Duncan, Dozier said that currently in Walla Walla County the commissioners are responsible for the jail’s finances “yet the operational direction is being set by the sheriff.”
Dozier said Turner “has a good plan moving forward with how he wants to have his law enforcement run in the county and is pretty progressive with that.” But Dozier added he has personally thought the jail is an “anchor” on Turner’s plans because of the building’s age and other issues.
“It’s a huge cost burden out there,” Dozier said.
Commissioners should consider that if they broke off jail operations from the Sheriff’s Office, those “burdensome issues maybe would fall more on our shoulders” and Turner’s focus could be on protection of the people “and, as he says, ‘catching the bad guys,’” Dozier said.
Duncan, who took office in January, said he could see the advantages in the separation.
“You have two different missions with two different budgets and those are crammed together,” he said.
Dozier also questioned whether the commissioners would want to have the jail managed as a new county department with its own head.
Johnson, who is the commission’s liaison with the Sheriff’s Office, said he would could get Turner’s feedback on the proposal.
Dozier, however, said that “based on (state law), we don’t have to have his blessing. It’s going to be up to this board to make that decision” and it would be based on financial issues.
Turner declined to say this morning whether the proposal was a surprise to him.
“I don’t think it’s relevant,” he said. “(The commissioners) have decided to undertake a research project and I’ll be happy to help them any way that I can.”
Turner said the jail currently employs 21 corrections officers, plus a head chef and a part-time clerk. Other personnel under the corrections budget include four part-time Superior Court security officers and one part-time inmate work crew officer, although it is funded for two.
Turner said he did not know offhand what percentage of the total budget for the Sheriff’s Office goes to the corrections division. “I’ll have to do some research on that,” he said.
Dozier said any decision on jail separation would be made by the board as a whole. However, he said, “I’m serious about moving forward with this.”
Not a new idea
The former chief corrections deputy for the Walla Walla County Jail said today that, in his view, creating a separate corrections department would be a good move for the county.
Harmon said he brought up the idea of separating the jail from the Sheriff’s Office to Commissioner Perry Dozier sometime in February.
“I had seen something about in Spokane and it occurred to me that it made good business sense,” he said. “I had mentioned it to Perry just to say, ‘Have you ever thought about this?’ It was pretty quick.”
Dozier on Tuesday confirmed the conversation with Harmon and said he told him “it was worth looking into.”
Dozier said, however, that over the years he’s had offhand conversations with past commissioners about creating a separate corrections department.
“It was something that has been discussed,” he said, going back to when former Sheriff Mike Humphreys was preparing to retire.
“It’s been brought up in bits and pieces over the years with (former commissioners) Greg (Tompkins) and Gregg (Loney),” Dozier said.
He said he brought the topic up again now because county commissioners are already starting to look at the 2016 budget in addition to going into contract negotiations with the union representing corrections personnel.
Dozier said another reason is related to the vacancy in the chief corrections deputy position created by Turner’s dismissal of Harmon on March 3. If commissioners create a separate corrections division, they would appoint the head of that department, not the sheriff.
“If we’re going to think about doing it, we need to do it before (the sheriff) appoints a replacement (for Harmon),” he said.