(The Center Square) – Facing state funding cuts, the city might consolidate nearly all of its therapeutic courts to prioritize available resources on the Spokane Community Court and a new “recovery court.”
Therapeutic Court Coordinator Sarah Thompson and Judge Kristin O’Sullivan updated the Spokane City Council on Monday about the situation they warned about in July. The Washington State Administrative Office of Courts, or AOC, has cut the city’s therapeutic court funding by roughly 40% since July 2023.
AOC allocated $738,000 to the city for fiscal year 2024, which ran from July 2023 to June 2024, but it cut that amount to around $712,000 for FY 2025. Six months later, it cut Spokane’s therapeutic court funding in the middle of the cycle by another 17% to $594,000, and this year, AOC reduced it by another 27%.
Thompson said the city received $430,000 for this cycle, of which, $320,000 will go toward personnel.
“At this point, the court is trying to determine what our path forward is,” O’Sullivan said. “We kind of have two options. One, we have a consolidation of all of our treatment courts, with the exception of community court … Our other options are to continue with status quo to some extent, although with our AOC funding as it currently sits, we cannot continue to do things the way that we have been doing.”
The city spent more on personnel in FY 2025 than its entire FY 2026 AOC budget. Thompson said they’re starting by closing the Domestic Violence Intervention Treatment Court later this month since it costs the most. The city has also laid off one community justice specialist and is pausing other hiring efforts.
Outside of the DV court, Spokane has a DUI court, Mental Health Court, Veterans’ Court and the, at times, controversial Community Court. The latter is what the city uses to address low-level, nonviolent quality-of-life offenses, typically somewhat related to homelessness and substance abuse disorders.
While intended to reduce recidivism with wraparound services, others argue that the Community Court is failing to hold defendants accountable. Assistant City Attorney Lynden Smithson is running against Judge Mary Logan, who presides over that court, and hopes to win her seat in the upcoming election.
If Spokane decides to continue with the status quo, leaving all five courts in place, it could go after Bureau of Justice Assistance, or BJA, grants, but O’Sullivan cited uncertainty around federal funding.
“With the BJA grant, it would be under the umbrella of what we would call a recovery court,” she said.
The issue is that the federal government has paused those funds in the past, making the city cautious about relying on that grant again. She said the recovery model would open up a component of a drug court, which could also handle charges like thefts, assaults and others related to substance abuse.
The BJA funding would allow the city to maintain AOC-funded positions and have less of an impact on the prosecutor and public defender offices than merging the courts. The city is already in its second year with the grant, with two more years to go, but has held off on spending it due to sustainability concerns.
Whatever option is chosen, it will take time to stand up a new program and close out the others.
Thompson said they will provide quarterly updates to the council on the situation moving forward.
“We do need to provide notice to our contracted providers. The contracts tend to have about a 30-day notice; we like to give 60 just because it is affecting their livelihood,” Thompson said. “The greatest impact is actually on our participants, because they have that structure of coming to court regularly.”
