Supervisors of North Olympic Peninsula jails and the state’s Clallam Bay Correctional Facility are struggling with high food prices — and bracing for costs to soar even more.
Even though some buy food on annual contracts and have prices preset within a certain range, fuel surcharges and fresh produce prices are threatening to burst their budgets.
Faced with increases of from 20 to 50 percent in prices over the past year, none has requested an increase in public funding, but most supervisors expect to do so for 2009.
And if food prices rise much more, they could ask for emergency increases before the end of the fiscal year in December.
In the meantime, many are doing creative juggling to keep costs down and find new sources of revenue.
