The future of Larch Corrections Center remains an open question 11 days after Gov. Chris Gregoire announced that the minimum-security prison near Hockinson likely will close as a result of across-the-board budget cuts this fall.
Anxious Larch employees thought they had won a temporary reprieve Friday, when Dan Pacholke, acting director of prisons for the Department of Corrections, sought to quell their fears of an immediate closure.
“There has been speculation that Larch is closing on Oct. 1,” Pacholke wrote in his weekly message to prison staff members. “Today there simply is no such plan.”
The prison caseload “continues to trend above the forecast and we really aren’t in a position to close anything more than what we are already prepared to do,” he wrote.
Pacholke said in an interview that Larch corrections employees shouldn’t read too much into his message.
“The context around that is that there are no plans to close Larch today,” he said. “It is not part of any closure plan, any document that exists. Really what I wanted to do was respond to a rumor that Larch will close Oct. 1, and that is not the case.”
He added, “What I do is read the newspaper. We continue to go through budget exercises with state government. I don’t know what tomorrow holds.”
Larch was downsized from 480 beds to 240 this year as part of a plan to consolidate prison beds statewide. In an agreement brokered by the House of Representatives, the Corrections Department agreed to also shrink the medium-security prison on McNeil Island near Tacoma from 1,200 to 256 inmates by next March. Pacholke said the McNeil Island prison population is on schedule to drop to 512 inmates by Sept. 15.
Cutting deeper?
Corrections chief Eldon Vail told The Columbian the closure of Larch would save about $2.5 million in the first six months of 2011, which would amount to roughly 10 percent of the $25 million the department might have to whack from its budget to deal with another looming state deficit.
Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said Monday it’s possible the department could be required to cut deeper, slashing as much as $50 million from its $1.8 billion operating budget between now and June 30, 2011.
Some Larch employees and former employees believe far more savings could be realized by closing the McNeil Island prison, which is one of the state’s most expensive prisons to operate because everything and everyone must be transported by ferry.
“Why is this fair?” asked Pat Edwards, a former classification counselor at Larch who was laid off in April. “How much is the burden being shared? Clark County is bearing the burden for the entire state of Washington and we have the highest unemployment rate in the state.”
“Personally, the suspense of the closure over the last nine months has created a lot of anxiety and uncertainty,” said Vince Robinson, a counselor at Larch for the past seven years. “I wonder where or when to enroll my kids in school, whether to sign new contracts or to not buy anything larger than the trunk of my car.”
Legislators from Southwest Washington came together to save Larch during the 2010 legislative session. But as Gregoire searches for ways to cut 4 to 7 percent from state agencies by mid-2011, nothing is off-limits.
The potential cuts come as the prison system is experiencing a higher caseload than forecast when the budget was adopted. “If this trend continues it gets increasingly difficult to cut beds,” Pacholke said.
Could empty Larch beds actually be needed to meet the demand?
“Anything is possible,” he said.
