Covington, Maple Valley, Black Diamond and other cities will have two more years to house their misdemeanor offenders in King County jails, owing to the County Council’s recent decision to extend the regional jail services contract.

That decision also calls for the county to negotiate with the cities on a long-term contract.

“Extending the contract an additional two years will give us more time to work with the cities to develop a real solution – a long-term strategy for a regional jail that is efficient and cost-effective for the public,” said Councilwoman Julia Patterson. “This is just the first step.”

The council’s action calls for:

• Immediate reopening of negotiations with the cities in King County to extend the current jail services contract by at least two years, to Dec. 31, 2014.

• Expansion of bed space at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, with a proposal delivered by the county executive to the council by Oct. 1 for consideration in the 2009 budget process.

• Negotiation with the state and the cities on a capital construction plan for expansion of both jails and community corrections programs.

• Negotiation of a new long-term contract with the cities for regional integration of criminal justice services and a partnership for capital funding for new jail capacity, allocation of operating costs, and the use of criminal justice efficiencies and best practices to benefit the system.

A majority of cities now contract with the county for jail beds for their misdemeanor inmates, as well as with Yakima County. In 2002, King County, faced with jail population projections that showed it was running out of room, announced that it would no longer accept misdemeanor inmates from the cities after 2012. Yakima County has set its own deadline of 2010, but negotiations are ongoing.

But county officials now say that efficiencies in court, prosecutor and public defense procedures, as well as increased use of alternatives to incarceration, have produced lower inmate projections and available bed space.

To meet the anticipated 2012 deadline, several cities have already begun planning for local jails. But at a County Council committee meeting on June 30, a panel of elected officials and staff from cities supported the reopening of negotiations to extend the current jail contract.

For Covington, it’s a matter of finding a place to affordably house those who have been arrested in the city limits, according to police chief Kevin Klason.

“The city can’t afford its own jail,” Klason said. “We do our initial booking on arrest into the Regional Justice Center in Kent — when they’re open — for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies.”

Offenders are held there, or at the jail in downtown Seattle, until they make their first court appearance.

“When we walk them in the door just for initial booking, it costs the city $208,” Klason said. “For every day they’re in there, the daily rate is $109. If they can’t make bail in a reasonable time frame, we do have an arrangement with the Yakima Jail. It is cheaper to have them in Yakima than King County.”

Klason said Yakima transports prisoners from here daily, and the maintenance fee is about $75 a day there.

Both Covington and Maple Valley pay the same rates for booking and daily maintenance of $208.67 and $109.10, respectively.

Covington’s total jail cost in 2007, Klason said, was $164,114, which in addition to keeping inmates in King County and Yakima includes what the city pays to Renton and Buckley for limited use of those cities’ jails.

Last year, Maple Valley paid King County $12,750 for jail services, according to city officials.

While negotiations with the county and Yakima are ongoing, south King County-area cities are looking at alternatives, Klason said.

“As the contract expiration date got closer, we started looking at other options,” Klason said. “There’s a consortium made up of Kent, Renton, Auburn, Des Moines and Federal Way that are looking at building a jail in the south end. They would build it large enough for all of their own prisoners with the ability to expand it in the future, as well as room for other cities, and the projection is their rates would beat King County’s considerably.”

Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis, eye firmly fixed on the straits the 2012 deadline imposed on local cities and involved in local efforts to build a regional jail, said he would like assurance before considering a long-term contract that the county won’t put the cities in a similar situation in the future.

“That is our responsibility to taxpayers,” Lewis said.

Staff writer Kris Hill contributed to this report.