Stanwood jail costs expected to exceed budget by end of 2025

Published 1:30 am Thursday, September 18, 2025

EVERETT— Stanwood Police Chief Jason Toner said the jail funds used will likely be over budget by the end of 2025.

In an update added to the city council packet for the Sep. 11 meeting, Toner said the city has spent $53,078 of the $59,482 budget for 2025.

In his update, Toner said the jail budget is essential to maintaining safety and quality of life in Stanwood.

“We are a growing community,” Toner said in an interview Tuesday. “So just FYI for them when they go into their budget planning process, that they probably should raise it.”

If the rest of the bookings consist of one or two-day stays, Toner said he anticipates ending the year with expenses of close to $70,000.

Stanwood will not be making changes to the pre-approved budget, City Administrator Shawn Smith said in an interview Tuesday.

“We did a two-year budget last year, so next year’s budget’s already approved,” he said.

Toner attributed the rise in cost to courts and prosecutors returning to pre-COVID-19 practices and a series of repeat offenders.

Individuals are experiencing longer jail stays due to judges imposing bail requirements rather than releasing suspects on personal recognizance, and the prosecutor’s office is moving cases along at faster rates, the update said.

Incidents of the court setting bail rather than releasing suspects on personal recognizance increased post pandemic due to lessened fears around housing large amounts of people during COVID-19, said Michael Held, chief of staff for the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office.

As of September, Stanwood police have arrested 41 people, resulting in 142 total jail days, Toner’s update said. Five people accounted for 111 days and more than $31,000 in costs. The five cases involved domestic violence, protection order violations and driving under the influence.

“It’s hard to change your budget so much for just five cases that happened to run the cost up,” Smith said.

One case cited in the update referred to an unnamed suspect who cost Stanwood $11,000 after two domestic violence arrests. Two individuals experienced medical issues while in jail, which increased costs, Toner said.

The daily jail rate is $204.85, with things like booking fees, medical costs, transportation and legal fees contributing to added costs.

Prior to COVID-19, the jail budget was around $80,000 to $90,000, Toner said. Due to changes in jail proceedings during the pandemic, the budget dropped from $91,237 in 2020 to $55,000 in 2021, where it remained before steadily increasing in 2024.

“Now that we’re out of COVID, we’re just seeing it kind of getting back to normal,” Toner said in an interview Tuesday.

At the end of 2024, Stanwood had $22,519 remaining from their budget, continuing a similar trend of being under budget since 2016.

“I hadn’t really been looking at the jail budget all that in depth because we’ve always been under until this year,” Toner said in an interview Tuesday.

The surplus will come out of Stanwood’s general fund, which handles administrative services, streets, parks and public emergency services. Citizens will not see an increase in taxes because other aspects of the criminal justice budget do not have significant changes, Smith said.

“If they all continue to go up at a significant rate, then at some point we would have to look at something,” Smith said. “We’re not hearing that big increases are necessarily coming for all those things.”

Jenna Millikan: 425-339-3035; jenna.millikan@heraldnet.com; X: @JennaMillikan