This bill amends RCW 70.48.140 to change how county and municipal jails may house people held under authority of the United States. It makes acceptance discretionary (the person having charge of a jail may receive and keep federal detainees when room is available) but generally requires a contract with the federal government before a jail accepts anyone in federal custody. The bill also preserves a jail’s ability to accept a person who is presented to the jail before a required contract is entered and allows a jail, in its sole discretion, to accept a federal detainee if it determines there is a reasonable public safety interest in doing so. The bill establishes a 180-day transitional rule: beginning 180 days after a jail’s acceptance of the first federal detainee following the act’s effective date, the jail may not accept new people in federal custody for confinement or committal except under a contract with the federal government. Any such contract must include a fee at a rate not less than the daily bed rate established by interlocal agreement under RCW 39.34.180. Affected parties include county and municipal jails and the federal government. The bill is identified as Substitute Senate Bill S-4554.1 / Senate Bill 6080 and was read in the Senate on 02/04/26. The act’s effective date is not provided in the extracted text, definitions for key terms and the mechanism for determining the daily bed rate are not included here, and it is unclear whether other sections or implementation details appear elsewhere in the full bill.

If enacted, county and city jails would have clear authority to accept people held by the federal government when they have space, and after an initial 180‑day transition period they would generally need a written contract with the federal government before taking new federal detainees. Those contracts must pay at least the daily bed rate set under existing interlocal agreement rules, so jails that choose to contract can expect a baseline per‑diem payment and a potential new revenue stream, while the federal government would need to negotiate and pay those rates. Jails also keep the immediate flexibility to accept a federal person presented to them before a contract exists and can still take someone without a contract if the jail decides there is a reasonable public safety need. The groups most affected are county and municipal jails, which will face new administrative work to negotiate and manage contracts and to track when the 180‑day window applies; their funding options may improve but their responsibilities and contracting costs/risks will increase. Important implementation details are missing from the provided text—most notably the bill’s effective date and clear definitions for key terms like how the daily bed rate is established and what qualifies as a “reasonable public safety interest”—so how quickly and easily jails must comply remains unclear.