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Thurston County to Pass Federal Byrne Grant Funds to State Prosecutors’ Association for Workload Study
Summary
County staff asked commissioners to approve routing a previously awarded Byrne grant through Thurston County to the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys to support a statewide prosecutor workload study; the request was presented for approval at the Feb. 11 agenda-setting session and will be finalized at a later meeting.
Prosecutor John Tunheim asked the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners to approve a subaward of previously awarded Byrne grant funding to the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (WAPA) to support a statewide prosecutor workload study.
Tunheim said the county received the Byrne grant in 2022 to study prosecutor workload locally but that no single vendor could be found to perform the work at scale. He described WAPA’s parallel effort to conduct a statewide study using Washington-specific data and said the grantor approved a passthrough subaward so Thurston County could contribute its awarded funds to that statewide project. “We asked them if we could simply sub award this to WAPA as part of that project since Thurston County will be participating in that project and we will get our workload standards from that,” Tunheim said.
The prosecutor said the statewide study will use Washington data rather than national proxies and that participation by Thurston County will produce workload information the county can use locally. Commissioners asked whether the county would have paid all or part of the study costs without the subaward; Tunheim said the remaining cost is spread across counties and that using the awarded Byrne funds reduces the burden on Thurston’s general fund.
No formal vote was recorded at the Feb. 11 agenda-setting session. Tunheim asked the board to finalize approval to pass the grant through the county’s administrative process so WAPA can proceed; staff said the grantor has approved the subaward in principle and that the county would formalize the passthrough on a subsequent board agenda.
The county discussion noted the Byrne grant is a long-standing federal criminal justice grant program. Commissioners expressed support for routing the funds to a statewide effort that would return Washington-specific workload standards for prosecutors.
Items for follow-up include placing formal approval on the Feb. 18 board agenda (first review) and confirming the final subaward language and reporting responsibilities once the administrative documents are complete.
