(The Center Square) – After years of overcrowding at its downtown jail, Spokane County is looking for ways to expand it, but one last resort could require closing Geiger Corrections Center and combining the remaining inmates.
The Spokane County Jail regularly deals with red-light statuses, meaning officers wait until an inmate leaves before processing another. Detention Services needs more space, but with limited funding it can only do so much after voters rejected a 2023 tax initiative to fund a new facility.
The jail sits downtown, with Geiger, which houses lower-level offenders, in Airway Heights next to the Spokane International Airport. Capacity depends on the charge, classification risk, and other factors, so despite Geiger sporting some capacity, it can’t hold most felons, unlike the downtown jail.
Mike Sparber, senior director of law and justice, told the Board of County Commissioners on Monday that modernizing Geiger might not be the answer. He oversees several departments in the county, including Detention Services and the facilities that fall under its jurisdiction.
“It was built in 1952 as an army barracks,” Sparber said. “It does require significant capital improvements in the future if we want it to have a useful life. Some of those are estimated below, which is the environmental retrofit, which we know is $40 million to $45 million.”
Retrofitting Geiger to meet today’s standards would also require a new kitchen, boilers and other repairs, adding $2.75 million. Commissioner Al French asked how much it would cost to keep the facility open for a few more years rather than two or three decades.
He said there’s been an interest from the private sector in modernizing Geiger to reduce the practice of book-and-release. Sparber said he’d like to see an evaluation first but noted that capacity relies on multiple factors, including staffing, which comes with opening or expanding almost any facility.
“Even if we have $5 million,” Spokane County CEO Scott Simmons responded, “we don’t have staffing to open up more wings out there.”
Renovated or not, Sparber said decommissioning Geiger will still cost $4.75 million after the county’s lease ends.
He said a better solution would be providing cells that can hold any inmate, regardless of the charge. Spokane County is paying for duplicate services by operating both facilities. It could cut costs if it closed one and shifted agreements with other municipalities that are utilizing the facility.
The board previously hired a consulting firm to evaluate how it could expand capacity downtown and expects those results in the coming weeks. Another version of Sparber’s presentation, which he intended to give last week, suggested closing Geiger and sending the inmates downtown.
Under that scenario, Spokane County would cut 50% of the inmates it isn’t required to house by law, such as those from other municipalities. Doing so would reduce the jail population to roughly 600 people, with another 180 or so left at Geiger that would head downtown.
The plan would require the consulting firm to identify space for 91 more beds at the downtown jail. The facility can currently house 645 to 717 people depending on factors such as inmate movement and operational challenges. This plan takes the capacity up to 736 to 817 inmates.
“We’re just planning and thinking about the what-if scenario,” Simmons said. “Contingency plans should something [happen], you know, a major failure out at Geiger that renders it unable to use.”
