County Council Caps Jail Build at $205 Million as Design Work Begins

The Whatcom County Council approved the justice project in August with a $205 million cap on jail construction and $20 million set for a behavioral care center on Division Street. The design phase is now underway.

A sales and use tax Whatcom voters passed in 2023 funds the work. Whatcom County Policy and Communications Specialist Riley Sweeney said the measure was approved for the explicit purpose of building justice facilities and "addressing the root causes of incarceration." The tax brings in about $14 million a year, Sweeney said, giving the county roughly $225 million to spend. The ballot measure called for half the money to go to the new jail building and half to behavioral health services.

Sheriff Donnell Tanksley wrote in a January memo that the current jail is outdated, overcrowded and short on rehabilitation and education programs. He proposed a 650-bed facility, with 540 main beds and a 20 percent buffer for expansion and programming. The approved plan carries 440 to 460 beds. Sweeney said the final count will come with the blueprints: "We figure that out when they're doing the blueprints." RMC Architects is designing the facility. Ram Construction and Clark Construction are building it. The three are working together from the start. Sweeney said that approach saves money by avoiding bid revisions and cutting down on changes during construction.

Heather Flaherty, executive director of the Chuckanut Health Foundation, has followed the project since 2015. She is also co-chair of the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force. She said the gap between the promised funding split and the current plan concerns her. "When the estimates actually started coming in around the jail cost of construction, and that made the 50% variable tricky to figure out, that's concerning to me," she said. Her task force is compiling options for reaching an even split and other efficiencies, with a report due by the end of November. "There will be a full disclosure of, 'here's the findings, here's what the discussions have been, here's some of the ideas,' and then it'll go to the task force, and the task force will decide what they want to ordain or recommend to county council," Flaherty said.

Flaherty said costs, turnover in administration and shifting inmate numbers all affect the balance. "One thing I've learned in all this work is that there's absolutely nothing simple about anything," she said.

The team has decided to leave the rapid reentry center out of current construction because of budget and space limits. Sweeney said building it separately allows a different timeline and future expansion. He said the county is contacting state legislators about funding for that piece. A decision is expected early next year. Officials are also discussing whether to build two smaller courtrooms in place of one large one, but no decision has been made.

Blueprints are expected by early next year. Sweeney said the county is not at an even split now. "The goal was day one. It's very expensive to build something. We're not at a perfect 50-50 split on day one, but we're going to get there, it's just a matter of when," he said. The task force report is due by the end of November.