Amid Untenably High Jail Costs, E. Wenatchee Mulls Options

The economic burden of incarceration is not lost on the East Wenatchee City Council.

At a meeting on Tuesday, councilmembers finalized the budget for FY 2025. Operating expenses outweigh revenues, so it’s not surprising that Councilman Mark Botello was met with chirps of approval when he floated a public safety sales tax. These are commonly adopted by localities in Washington.

In theory the tax would offset an increasingly untenable arrangement with the Chelan County Regional Justice Center in Wenatchee, where East Wenatchee offenders are housed pending trial.

“I’m all ears,” said finance director Josh DeLay, a fiscal realist of sorts. He talked to KPQ last year about the imprudence of the city’s jail services contract.

According to another councilmember, “That’s part of the problem. The contracts, the services we’re bound to provide are the ones hitting us in the pocket. Nothing much we can do about that right this minute.”

The city pays big bucks for access to Chelan County’s flagship correctional facility, budgeting ~$1.1 million for 2025 alone. That’s an almost 6.5% increase over 2024. Douglas County has no jail of its own.

It wasn’t always like this. For most of the last decade, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office had a more reciprocal agreement in place with Okanogan County Jail. That contract, first inked in 2013, was renewed five years later, but the two counties severed ties in 2022.

Mayor Jerrilea Crawford says that come January, she and DeLay will be workshopping various measures to ease the financial hardship. Click here for the audio of Tuesday’s meeting.