State consultant recommends closing Ahtanum View Corrections Center

The closure of Ahtanum View Corrections Center in Yakima is among the cost-cutting recommendations contained in a consultant's report submitted today to the state Department of Corrections.

The state Legislature had directed the Office of Financial Management to hire a contractor to provide recommendations for closing or consolidating institutions in the Department of Corrections (DOC), as well as the Department of Social and Health Services' (DSHS) Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration and Division of Developmental Disabilities programs. The legislation required the report to recommend reducing 1,580 beds in DOC, 235 juvenile rehabilitation beds and 250 beds in the Division of Developmental Disabilities program.

The consultant's draft report is recommending that the DOC:

• Close the old main institution at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. This would include the original prison behind the concrete walls built in the late 1800s, but not any of the additions, including North Close, the intensive management unit, the minimum-security unit and administration buildings. Total beds reduced in would be 1,653, including the closure of Ahtanum View Corrections Center and half of Larch Corrections Center in Yacolt, Clark County. • Or downsize McNeil Island to a minimum-security facility. Total beds reduced in this option would be 1,618, and would also include the closure of Ahtanum View Corrections Center.

The 100 elderly and infirm offenders at Ahtanum View would transfer to a minimum-security unit at the Monroe Corrections Complex.

The recommendation for the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration, which is overseen by DSHS, is to close Maple Lane School in Rochester, Thurston County, which would result in the reduction of 235 beds.

The recommendations for the Developmental Disabilities Division (residential rehabilitation centers) are:

• Close all beds for intermediate-care facilities at all facilities over an eight-year period.

• Close, in phases, Francis Haddon Morgan Center in Bremerton by 2013.

• Close, in phases, Rainier School in Buckley by 2017.

• Keep open Fircrest, Lakeland Village and Yakima Valley with a small number of skilled nursing facility beds.