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Lebanon staff outline $1.2M-a-year price to fully reopen municipal jail; levy pitched as primary funding option
Summary
The Lebanon Police Department told the City Council an estimated $1.2 million a year would be required to operate the municipal jail in compliance with state and insurance standards, and urged the city to consider an operations levy as the preferred funding route.
The Lebanon Police Department and city staff presented a work-session briefing on the municipal jail, describing its history, legal and insurance requirements, and estimated costs to operate the facility in compliance with state law and insurance standards.
Chiefs and staff said the municipal jail handles misdemeanor-level, municipal-sentenced adults; felony offenders are held in county or state facilities until transfer. They described a long history of operating the jail with patrol officers filling corrections duties, which reduced patrol availability and increased operational and liability risk. When the jail was intermittently closed during 2020 and again in 2023, staff cited persistent staffing shortfalls and the inability to meet CIS (insurance) and Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) hourly-check requirements as key reasons for closure.
Staff presented five-year operational statistics: calls for service rose about 11 percent, cases charged through the city attorney's office rose about 30 percent, and warrants issued rose approximately 52 percent. Staff also reported high failed-to-appear rates for…
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