The Detention Center
Kittitas County Jail (also called the Kittitas County Corrections Center)
- Operated byKittitas County Sheriff's Office
- Jail addressKittitas County Public Safety Building, 205 West 5th Ave., Suite 1, Ellensburg, WA 98926 — 509-962-7527
- Published capacity"The Kittitas County Jail (KCJ) was built in the 1980's to house about 45 inmates. In 2012 the Annex was completed which significantly increased bed space and brought our total capacity to 209."
- Rated beds / average daily population103 rated beds, ADP 125.75 in CY2025 — WASPC, not the county. The county's published 209 total capacity and WASPC's 103 rated beds do not agree; WASPC's figure puts the jail above rated capacity.
- Bail accepted24/7 at the jail front door in exact cash, through an approved bond company, or online through Allpaid
- ProgrammesWork release, GED preparation, school release and inmate work crews for county maintenance, public works, the fairgrounds and solid waste
- Original cost / fundingNot found — checked the Jail page, the jail FAQs, the PREA page, the Sheriff's pages and the Auditor's budget pages
Source: Kittitas County Sheriff — Jail · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtBuilt in the 1980s to house about 45 inmates (county Jail page)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds209 total capacity published by the county after the 2012 Annex. WASPC records 103 rated beds against an average daily population of 125.75 in CY2025 — the two figures do not agree and on WASPC's the jail is over capacity.
Since then
- Annex completed in 2012, which the county says "significantly increased bed space and brought our total capacity to 209"
The Sheriff
Sheriff Clayton Myers
- Runs the jailYes — "The Kittitas County Jail is a division of the Kittitas County Sheriff's Office"; no separate county department of corrections exists, so RCW 70.48.090(4) leaves the Sheriff in charge
- Day-to-day jail managementSteve Panattoni, Jail Superintendent
- How the office is filledElected countywide
- OfficePublic Safety Building, 307 W Umptanum Rd, Ellensburg, WA 98926 — 509-962-7525
- Corrections deputies"have full law enforcement authority while on duty at the direction of the Sheriff"
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Kittitas County Sheriff — Directory · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Washington Superior Court judges are elected in nonpartisan countywide races and District Court judges in nonpartisan district races; municipal court judges are elected or appointed by the city. All are state judicial officers, not county officials — the county pays part of the cost but does not choose the judge. A judge, not the sheriff or the jail, sets bail. Court rosters here come from the Administrative Office of the Courts' county directory at courts.wa.gov.
Kittitas County Superior Court — 205 W 5th Ave, Ste 207, Ellensburg
- Chris Herion, Judge
- James Kirkham, Judge
Lower Kittitas District Court — 205 W 5th Ave, Rm 180, Ellensburg
- Paul R. Sander, Judge
- Jennifer Ellis, Commissioner
Upper Kittitas District Court — 700 E 1st St, Cle Elum
- Craig Juris, Judge
Cle Elum and Roslyn Municipal Courts — 700 E 1st St, Cle Elum
- Craig Juris, Judge
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- prea: marked yes, with a qualification. Kittitas publishes an annual PREA report for every year from 2019 to 2025 as a PDF, plus a table of PREA investigations and findings (unfounded / sustained / non-sustained) going back to 2015. These are the jail's own reports and statistics, not a DOJ-certified third-party PREA audit report.
- capacity: marked no — total capacity is published but no daily population figure is, so the check fails on the second half.
- The county's published capacity of 209 and WASPC's rated bed figure of 103 conflict. Recorded as found; the discrepancy is itself a finding.
- bond_info: the jail FAQ page sets out three routes to post bail — exact cash at the front door, an approved bond company, or online through Allpaid — and says the jail accepts bail 24 hours a day.
- fees: marked no — the county publishes a video visitation timetable by housing module but no phone, video-visit or commissary rates.
- deaths: the county publishes nothing about a death in custody, and no Department of Health unexpected-fatality review names a Kittitas County facility.
- budget: the Auditor's finance page carries the 2026 Budget in Brief, the 2026 preliminary budget summary, budget adoption resolutions and six years of prior budgets.
- Washington has no state jail inspectorate and no enforceable statewide jail standards; the Corrections Standards Board was abolished in 1987 and RCW 70.48.071 leaves each local government to adopt its own. The only statewide jail record the state publishes is the Department of Health's unexpected-fatality review file under RCW 70.48.510.
- WASPC 2025 statewide jail statistics: https://www.waspc.org/annual-jail-statistics (data file https://waspc.memberclicks.net/assets/JbrsSavin/2025.xlsx)
- Three commissioners elected by district. District 1 is listed vacant on the county's own Board page (term 2025-2028); Laura Osiadacz holds District 2 and Brett Wachsmith District 3. Kittitas County publishes no jail district and no dedicated jail tax.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Kittitas County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
The county auditor runs the election in Kittitas County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from USA.gov and vote.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered