Penny Sapp gets through few meetings these days without someone bringing up the cost of medical care at the Kitsap County Jail.
Prices have more tripled in the less than a decade and become a major contributor to the county’s multi-million budget deficit next year. Sapp, Kitsap County’s chief of corrections, says the escalation “feels almost personal.” But she knows there is almost nothing she can do.
Federal law requires jails to provide medical care to those in their custody. But Washington facilities have had an increasingly difficult time fulfilling that obligation in recent years, threatening their operations and putting lives of the vulnerable population they incarcerate at-risk…