PORT ANGELES — The three county commissioners have decided to accept an annual contract renewal for nursing services at the Clallam County jail that includes a 6 percent cost of doing business increase.
Formal action on the contract will occur at their regular meeting at 10 a.m. Nov. 21 in the commissioners meeting room at the Clallam County Courthouse, 321 E. Fourth St. in Port Angeles.
The commissioners’ regular meeting on Nov. 14 has been canceled due to the annual meeting of the state Association of Counties.
Chief Civil Deputy Elizabeth Waknitz told the commissioners on Monday the action is the county’s annual contract renewal with Correctional Healthcare Companies for 3.05 full-time-equivalent nurses.
It will increase by 6 percent, from $576,768 in 2023 to $611,374 in 2024, paid in monthly installments, an amount already included in the budget, she said.
It is just for nurses; doctors are covered as county employees since they aren’t on a service contract, Waknitz said.
“It’s not an inexpensive contract, but it seems to me that when we have looked at alternatives, we really didn’t have any,” Commissioner Randy Johnson said.
Said Waknitz: “I know. I think nursing services is just expensive. I mean, a lot of it has to do with the insurance, like, the liability of what they are doing in the medical profession.”
Johnson replied: “I can imagine the liability issue being just enormous.”
Commissioner Mark Ozias said he saw the increase as “another insurance cost, an inflationary insurance cost, that is just being contained within a contract.”
County Administrator Todd Mielke asked which consumer price index the company was using, because the CPI the county uses, Seattle-Puget Sound, only shows a 4.5 percent increase.
“So, I was just kind of curious about 4.5 versus 6 and if it is actually specified in the contract which CPI they use,” he said.
Waknitz said the increase was tied to the company’s cost of doing business, not a CPI. That’s why they return with the contract every year; it’s a negotiable item, she said.
Ozias concluded by saying, “Historically, we have attempted several different arrangements to try and enact this service provision in the jail, and this is what we have been able to depend on really as compared to other models.”
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Reporter Brian Gawley can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at brian.gawley@peninsuladailynews.com.
