Martin Hall board reverts to set fee payment plan

With the Martin Hall Juvenile Detention Facility at Medical Lake continuing to operate at a loss because of low occupancy, members of the seven-county board in charge of the hall decided to revert to a set fee payment plan. The decision last week is intended to sustain the Martin operation for the balance of the year while the board considers the long-range fate of the operation.

Commissioner Art Swannack, who represents Whitman County on the hall’s board, said the numbers of juveniles in the hall has remained low the last several months, averaging about 17 juveniles at the Medical Lake center per day.

Martin Hall’s current operation is designed to sustain itself with an average occupancy of 29 juveniles per day with a charge of $155 per juvenile.

Whitman County has averaged one or two juveniles at the center per day for almost a year, Swannack said.

Whitman County commissioners Monday morning discussed an amendment to the Martin Hall agreement that requires each county to make payments to the hall whether the county has juveniles housed there or not. The commissioners did not vote on the amendment because they had not received a copy of the amendment from Lincoln County Commissioner Scott Hutsell, chairman of the Martin Hall board. They plan to vote on the amendment in the next couple of weeks.

“The board agreed to go back to the original interlocal agreement for the eight counties on the board,” Swannack said.

Spokane County opted out of the agreement in 2012, but continues to place their overload juveniles in the facility.

Swannack said Spokane’s agreement to house overload juveniles at the facility expires at the end of this year. Spokane did not have a vote on the new format which has been proposed to member counties.

Under the new agreement, Whitman County must pay between $40,000 to $45,000 for the remaining 10 months this year, regardless of whether or not they have juveniles in the facility.

“It’s no longer ‘pay-as-you-go’” Swannack said. “This is a way to stabilize funding.”

He also said he doesn’t know what will happen in the long-term.

“If the numbers don’t increase, Martin Hall is not viable,” Swannack said. “This just buys us time for this year, but I don’t know about next year.”

Each county board is required to accept the amendment which began March 1.

Other member counties include Adams, Asotin, Douglas, Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille and Stevens.

Swannack said that the juvenile center is losing $25,000 a month for every four inmates under the required 29 to keep the center financially stable.

“We’re buying time to make a good decision,” Swannack said.

He also said the numbers of 15- to 17-year-old juvenile offenders has decreased significantly recently and noted these numbers go in cycles. The average stay in the hall for a juvenile is seven days.

If Martin Hall closes down, options to house juvenile offenders might be to take them to Nez Perce in Lewiston at $175 a day, Spokane County at $190 per day, or as far away as Vancouver or Yakima.

Late in 2012, it was uncertain if Martin Hall would remain open when Spokane County pulled out.

The hall’s expenses run an average of $150,000 to $155,000 per month.

Martin Hall’s board wanted the facility to remain open for one more year and late in 2012 agreed to adopt a “pay-as-you-go” policy, not committing to a set payment for the hall’s use, but only paying for the number of beds each county actually uses.

Since 1996, each county had paid for a set number of bed-days per year. Whitman County averaged 2.5 beds per day, 912.5 beds per year and paid $141,437.

The hall consortium was formed in 1995. Each county issued bonds to renovate a former residence hall at Lakeland Village into the detention facility. Whitman County will pay off its share of the bonds in 2016.

In the event the operating fund drops below $350,000 for two consecutive months, the board will plan to shut down the facility.

Martin was built in 1935 on the Eastern State Hospital campus. It was originally used as a dormitory for hospital staffers. The building was later used as a sort of warehouse for Interlake School, a residential facility for profoundly disabled children, until the school was shut down in 1994.

The state leases the building at a rate of $1 per year.