The future of the Lebanon city jail sits in the hands of voters this November. On the ballot is a five-year property tax levy to reopen the 12-bed facility.
The jail has not been used since 2023. City Council President Michelle Steinhebel said reopening it would give local law enforcement another way to hold people accountable for misdemeanor offenses.
“Reopening the Lebanon jail is really about giving our police officers the tools they need to hold some of our offenders of misdemeanor crimes, particularly in Lebanon, accountable for their actions,” Steinhebel told KLCC.
The proposed tax would fund a facility Lebanon residents approved through a bond about 20 years ago. That bond helped pave the way for the city’s justice center, which officially opened in 2009. It included the jail, police station and municipal courts.
“We're asking the people to make this investment, to continue the investment that they made 20 years ago,” Steinhebel said. “That investment was to build this justice center, a total justice center that has the jail that has our police station, and has our courts and now we're asking for the funds to operate it accordingly.”
Steinhebel said the jail was previously run on a “shoestring budget” and that staffing shortages, insurance costs and the demands placed on patrol officers eventually made that model difficult to sustain.
“It's just come to the point with insurance and the amount of work that we were asking from patrol, where we need to do this properly,” she said.
When the jail was being utilized, patrol officers were responsible for checking on people in custody. Steinhebel said this required officers to depart their regular patrol duties, adding to the strain on an already understaffed department. That’s why the proposed levy would generate funding for corrections staff and mental health services.
It would cost $1.06 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The city estimates it would raise about $1.66 million a year.
For a property with an assessed value of $242,000, the city said the levy would cost about $297 a year, or roughly $25 a month.
The proposed levy would last five years. If approved, it would fund the city jail’s operations during that period unless voters later renew the tax.
If voters reject the levy, councilors say they would consider other options, including how the city could repurpose the existing jail space.
