Counties eye new juvenile justice center; they want state to kick in $7M

Benton and Franklin county officials are hoping for a big gift from the Washington Legislature — $7 million toward the $10 million the two counties need to replace the aging juvenile justice center in Kennewick.

The county commissions jointly agreed to lobby lawmakers to include the request in its 2019 capital budget during a special session Tuesday.

The $7 million request is a big ask. The average award from the capital budget is less than $1 million. The current capital budget has awards ranging from $10,000 to $7 million. The capital budget supports a wide range of projects, from education to justice to economic development.

The $4 billion budget itself has not been passed by lawmakers because of a Senate stalemate over the state supreme court’s controversial 2016 Hirst decision, concerning rural water rights.

The standoff means the Benton-Franklin Juvenile Justice Center request probably will have to wait until 2019. That gives officials a year to convince lawmakers that the $10 million justice center replacement is critical to the security and safety of the center’s users, and that it serves one of Washington’s larger metropolitan areas.

Most Tri-City lawmakers already have signed on to support the effort.

The most compelling argument: Justice is a state obligation.

“These are state mandated programs,” said Benton County Commissioner Jerome Delvin, who has taken the lead on pushing the juvenile justice center replacement. “We were told to do this by the state.”

The existing justice center is a bi-county operation on Canal Drive in Kennewick. The administrative complex, including a single courtroom, was constructed in the late 1970s. The detention center was built in 1998.

The detention center would not be affected by the rebuild, but the older portion would be demolished and rebuilt in the form of a two-story, 38,000-square-foot building. Construction would take about 18 months, during which justice center operations would be moved elsewhere, possibly to leased space.

The counties split operations and capital costs based on population. That’s currently about 70 percent for Benton County and 30 percent for Franklin. The counties would split the local share of the project along similar lines.

Tuesday’s session left the issue of local share aside for the time being.

Demolishing the old complex and building new is one of three options and the most expensive. The least expensive option is to remodel the existing building and construct a 24,000-square-foot addition, which would cost about $1 million less than all new.

The county commissions each voted to unanimously pursue state funds for the project. The Franklin County Commission also voted to pay a share of the estimated $1,000 monthly lobbying bill to push the project in Olympia.

Benton and Franklin counties have discussed the need at the juvenile justice center since at least 2014, when Franklin County agreed to support a $122,000 architectural study.

At the time, there was disagreement on whether to renovate the justice center or build new. Tuesday, both commissions agreed that a new building is preferable from a safety and security standpoint.

This story was originally published November 28, 2017 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Counties eye new juvenile justice center; they want state to kick in $7M."