Washington County filed a preliminary application for state courthouse construction funds and added it to the Board of Commissioners' work session agenda on July 13, one day before commissioners met to review the courthouse replacement project on July 14.

The application targets the Oregon County Courthouse Capital Improvement Fund, a state bond-matching program administered through the Oregon Judicial Department. The dollar amount requested has not been publicly confirmed.

Commissioners also received an update on a jail and community corrections center expansion at the same work session, but the county has not released cost estimates, bed counts, or a construction timeline for that project.

A 98-year-old courthouse with $12 million in deferred repairs

The courthouse replacement is the further-along project. The current Washington County Courthouse, built in 1928 at Main Street and First Avenue in downtown Hillsboro, faces $12 million in deferred maintenance, does not meet seismic standards, and lacks enough courtrooms for the county's caseload.

A 2024 workload study by the National Center for State Courts found the county needs five additional judges. Nearly 200 jurors are summoned daily and often wait in a basement area with exposed wiring, sharing one bathroom, according to KPTV reporting in February.

"We simply do not have enough courtrooms and the space to keep up with the number of cases that a county of this size has," Commissioner Pam Treece said at a February 5 news conference where county leaders urged the Oregon Legislature to protect $1.25 million in state planning funds.

The county matched that $1.25 million with general fund dollars. The county's planning phase runs through 2026 and 2027, with a full application for state design and construction funding targeted for early 2028, according to the Hillsboro News-Times.

The earliest construction start would be around 2033, with completion projected for 2035 or 2036.

Who presented

Assistant County Administrator Erin Calvert, Sheriff Caprice Massey, and Laurel Brown, director of Facilities, Fleet and Parks, presented the jail expansion update. Calvert, Brown, and Bryan Robb, the county's facilities senior planner, handled the courthouse update. The work session also included an executive session on real property negotiations.

How to weigh in

The next BCC regular meeting is Tuesday, July 21, at 10 a.m. at the Charles D. Cameron Public Services Building Auditorium, 155 N. First Ave., Suite 300, Hillsboro. The meeting is hybrid. Residents can sign up to testify at forms.co.washington.or.us/form/public-testimony-sign-up or email written testimony to [email protected].