Grant County to pay back $420K

EPHRATA - Grant County commissioners are asking local state legislators to reverse a decision that will force them to pay back $420,000 that the county erroneously received for defending two murder cases.

Commissioner employee June Strickler told commissioners at their regularly scheduled meeting that the state is holding back $140,000 in regular payments for each of the next three years to recoup the money that the county received for public defense costs.

The money would come from the criminal justice fund, which pays deputies' equipment and improvements to law and justice buildings, among other things. In 20 13, Grant County received $7510,00 in the fund from the state.

Last year, commissioners requested and received reimbursements from the Extraordinary Criminal Defense Costs Act for defending David Nickels and Gilberto Valdovinos Medina. The act allows the state office of public defense to pay back counties for costs incurred while defending aggravated murder cases. Neither man was charged with aggravated murder, so the county should have never received the money, the state claims.

"When making the fiscal year 2015 distribution to Grant County, the state treasurer shall reduce the amount by $140,000 and distribute the remainder to the county. This is the first of three reductions that will be made to reimburse the state for a non-qualifying extraordinary criminal justice act payment made to Grant County in fiscal year 2013," Washington State Association of Counties Director Eric Johnson wrote in an e-mail to the county.

Commissioners said they requested the money because, in the past, they have been paid back by extraordinary cost cases that were not aggravated murder cases.

"We knew when we submitted it that the money may not come," Commissioner Richard Stevens said. Stevens said commissioners have asked for help from (Sen.) Janea Holmquist Newbry and others to reverse the state's decision.