Members of the Tenino City Council approved a new two-and-a-half-year contract for police services with the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) during the council’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at Tenino City Hall.
While the council approved it, the contract has yet to be approved by the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners, which may approve it, reject it or make amendments.
The city had already been contracting with the TCSO through a temporary agreement after the Tenino Police Department was dissolved this past summer on May 12, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
This new contract begins on Jan. 1, 2027, and expires on June 30, 2029, according to the draft contract in the city council’s agenda report. TCSO deputies will provide normal policing services ranging from patrols to criminal investigation to SWAT response, and per the contract, the city will maintain the old Tenino Police Department building located at 358 McClellan St. S. for use as a TCSO substation.
Tenino Mayor Dave Watterson explained the contract’s annual cost was originally $225,000, the same annual rate paid by the neighboring City of Rainier, but he opted to pay an additional $75,000 a year — bringing the annual total to $300,000 — for TCSO deputies to assist with local festivals and events.
The other option was to have to pay overtime rates for TCSO deputies for those events on top of the regular $225,000 annual rate.
“Would it make sense to just not have that and pay them overtime? And I think our consensus was … knowing the history of when we needed extra help, especially Oregon Trail Days, where we’ll probably have several officers all day,” Watterson said, “that it was probably in our advantage to take them up on the $75,000 to cover extra shifts and any (events).”
Clauses for renegotiation were included in the contract should the city feel the need to either pay for more services, or less. In its final year of operation, the Tenino Police Department was funded to the tune of $733,869.29
The Tenino Police Department was initially put on the chopping block at the beginning of this year after Watterson announced the city was facing bankruptcy if it kept funding the department amid mandatory city interfund loan repayments it now has to make.
City interfund loans had to be retroactively created after it was discovered that budget misreporting issues between 2021 and 2023 resulted in an estimated $1.8 million from the city’s restricted sewer and water funds being spent on non-sewer and -water items — a violation of state law.
The city must now pay back the $1.8 million at a 4% interest rate to its own restricted funds. For more information on this story, read The Chronicle’s previous coverage of town halls on both the police department dissolution earlier this year at https://tinyurl.com/wxspz66f, and budget issues in 2024 at https://tinyurl.com/3bf8b34p.
During Tuesday’s meeting, the council also held a public hearing for the City of Tenino’s preliminary 2027 budget. Estimated revenues across all funds for 2027 were listed at $9,327,304.74, with estimated expenditures at $6,805,458.02.
Tenino City Councilor Elaine Klamn, also serving on the city’s finance committee, added city staff were still going through some numbers before finalizing the 2027 budget, meaning both revenues and expenditures could be further adjusted.
Two more 2027 budget public hearings are scheduled for the next two regular Tenino City Council meetings, on Nov. 24 and Dec. 8, before the council will vote on officially adopting the budget during the Dec. 8 meeting. To view the City of Tenino’s preliminary 2027 budget, go to page 22 of the Nov. 10 council meeting agenda packet on the city’s website at https://bit.ly/4iTQtrV.
