Lebanon staff outline $1.2M-a-year price to fully reopen municipal jail; levy pitched as primary funding option

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 municipal citations (examples given in the presentation: roughly 68 percent in 2022, 72 percent in 2023, 69 percent in 2024 and 68 percent year-to-date for 2025), which staff said drives repeat workload and administrative burden across police, court, and city offices.

The department confirmed the existing jail has a stated capacity of 12 and previously averaged roughly two to four adults in custody when it was staffed and operating. Staff described statewide context: municipal jails in Oregon fell from seven in operation to three (named in the briefing as Springfield, Reedsport and Florence), and insurance and statutory operating requirements have been a primary driver of closures.

Staff outlined the top risk categories identified by the city's CIS insurance assessment and by internal review: staffing, medical care/oversight and suicide prevention, together with meeting hourly-check and licensing expectations. For medical staffing, presenters said a licensed health-care provider model would include a nurse on-site two days per week and physician oversight with 24/7 on-call access; the presentation said this arrangement is required or expected under CIS guidance to maintain coverage.

On costs, staff summarized approximate annual figures used for planning: personnel about $750,000; licensed health-care oversight and nursing support roughly $75,000; CIS insurance premiums about $30,000; and operational items (transport, clothing, meals, maintenance) roughly $317,200. The presentation aggregated those figures to an approximate $1.2 million annual cost to sustain the facility under the required operating model.

To fund reopening, staff recommended an operations levy as the primary option. Staff estimated a levy to raise roughly $1.25'$1.3 million would take about six to 10 months to get onto the ballot and recommended $60,000 for polling and messaging consulting. Alternatives discussed were increasing the city services fee (staff estimated it would require roughly $12'$14 per month on a single-family home to generate the target revenue) or reducing existing city services to reallocate roughly $1.2 million; presenters described the latter as politically and practically difficult.

Council members asked about timing and trade-offs. Staff said, if funding were available immediately, hiring and training corrections staff would take roughly a year; if the city needs a levy ballot, the total timeline to an operational facility could be closer to two years (levy process plus hiring/training). Several councilors and staff noted that the city's existing library and justice-center debt service ends in 2027, which some said creates a political window to consider a levy.

Council discussion emphasized two themes: (1) the department's data showing high failure-to-appear and repeat-offender workloads, and (2) legal and insurance obligations that staff said require a dedicated corrections staffing model rather than relying on patrol officers. Several councilors expressed support for proceeding with levy planning and for staff to prepare more-detailed cost, outreach and timeline materials for goal-setting and subsequent decisions.

Staff did not present a formal vote or policy decision at the session; the briefing concluded with direction to continue analyzing options and to carry the issue into upcoming work sessions and goal-setting.