Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Two-year contract runs through 2023
REARDAN—The town and Lincoln County have reached an agreement on a contract for district court, prosecutor, defense, dispatch and jail services. The two-year contract will run through the end of 2023 after town council OK’d the deal at its April 7 regular meeting.
According to meeting documentation, the town will be charged $63 per inmate day, a rate that will increase to $66 per day in 2023. That rate will increase 2% per inmate day each year beginning Jan. 1 of every calendar year thereafter if the agreement isn’t terminated or re-negotiated.
Reardan must pay the full rate for up to 60 consecutive days. That will be lowered to a 50% charge for any consecutive inmate days after 60. However, if an inmate is released and rebooked, the base rate charge begins again at a full 100%.
“It’s a fair deal because our comparables are paying more,” Reardan Police chief Andy Manke told council. “We went with a two-year agreement because we wanted to see how it works before going any longer.”
The contract is retroactively beginning Jan. 1, 2022, which Manke said is because the two sides thought an agreement would be completed by then. He added that has no bearing on services in the town.
It’s the first updated contract between the town and county since 2012. In the 10-year gap between a new contract, Lincoln County has been forced to go off the former terms regarding charges to the town for such services.
At-times tense negotiations on an agreement were ongoing in 2020 but fizzled out, which Lincoln County Commissioners Scott Hutsell and Rob Coffman blamed on troubles working with Reardan’s town attorney.
However, county prosecutor Adam Walser took over negotiations from Hutsell this year. The commissioner cited a personal friendship with Reardan mayor Gail Daniels and the potential for negotiations to continue growing tense as his reason for handing the keys to Walser, and Manke credited the Ford native with making an agreement happen, a sentiment Hutsell echoed.
“Adam was the one that really helped to get this done, and the agreement largely mirrors the last decade,” Manke told town council.
The commissioners signed the contract April 4 and Daniels signed April 11.
Coffman said that the county had been forced to eat much of the costs of Reardan’s previously low-paying rate and the new contract charges the town a fairer price for the county’s shoestring budget.
“This contract means the city is paying a more equitable price to the county,” Coffman said.
Drew Lawson is the former managing editor of the Davenport Times and a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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