Renton residents and police guild urge city to preserve in‑house electronic home monitoring program

Several speakers at the Renton City Council's mid‑biennium budget public hearing urged the city to retain its in‑house electronic home monitoring program rather than move to outside vendors.

Mark Coleman, president of the Renton Police Guild, told the council he learned four weeks earlier that the city planned to end the EHM program and warned that "privatizing public safety is a dangerous business" and that "subcontracting union jobs is anti labor." He said EHM staff perform counseling, urinalysis, DNA and fingerprinting and that "our 2 EHM employees have been with the city of Renton for almost 30 years each." Coleman urged formation of a task force led by police department leadership to coordinate police, court, EHM and finance stakeholders to stabilize the program.

Rhea (Fran) Myers, manager of the Correctional Options Program with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), said the city remains the supervising agency under state law and warned that private resellers often lack oversight. "We've seen private resellers and unverified providers using equipment bought on the secondary market. They don't necessarily work," Myers said, adding that she has observed instances of devices failing and, in some cases, clients being financially exploited by unvetted providers.

Georgia Bunko, a Renton EHM employee since 1999, spoke about her experience and asked the council to continue the program. "We are passionate about our jobs," she said, and described the staff's focus on both client accountability and public safety.

A certified peer counselor, Joaquin Delgado, said EHM in the courthouse enables immediate resource referrals that help participants comply with court requirements and stay out of jail. He testified that removing on‑site EHM services tends to increase failures to comply and returns to custody.

No formal council action on the EHM program was recorded during the meeting. The comments occurred as part of the mid‑biennium budget public hearing; the council later voted to close that hearing. Several speakers urged the city to retain oversight and backgrounding standards for any EHM service, and to ensure any vendor chosen met equivalent supervision, insurance and background‑check requirements.

The council did not, during this meeting, vote on a contract change or termination for EHM; city staff and council members said budget and program details would be part of further review and committee discussion.