State Budget Includes Money to Send Female Inmates to Yakima

The mothballed jail at State Fair Park in Yakima may  have a future after all. The controversial facility has for the most part sat idle after the jail rental business declined in recent years. However the recently passed state supplemental budget is giving the facility new life. It includes money to house 75 female state  inmates in Yakima County.  Yakima County Commissioner Kevin Bouchey says the female prisoners will first go to the downtown county jail. "The 75 beds will come at 24 at a time over the course of the next few months. Initially, there going to be held in our downtown jail facility. It's likely by the end of the year we could have a portion of the jail at the fairgrounds opened up, that's one pod, or one quarter of the unused jail.

The supplemental budget includes $94,000 for fiscal 2014 and just under $1.5 million for fiscal 2015. That's not the state contract the county was hoping for, but Bouchey says it's a good start.

A contract would relieve a strained Yakima County operating budget by helping the $20.6 million jail built in 2006 cover the remaining $17 million of construction debt. The debt payment is $2 million dollars a year.