YAKIMA, Wash. -- The Yakima County commissioners are planning ahead.

Department of Corrections Director Steve Robertson plans to retire sometime within the next few years, and they’re already searching for his replacement.

“There’s no immediacy to his leaving,” Commissioner Mike Leita said. “But most likely within five years Steve will retire, and that is a $30 million operation over there.”

What they have in mind is someone with director-level capabilities who they can hire as assistant director until Robertson leaves, Leita said. The assistant director job has been open since last summer when Kelly Rosenow left within a year of being hired. Rosenow is now deputy chief for the Yakima Police Department.

To get a “director-caliber” assistant director, the commissioners are willing to make an exception the pay scale for the position. Rosenow got such an exception in 2007 when the county hired him at a salary of $86,700. The new hire likely will make in the $90,000 or $100,000 range, Leita said.
Robertson is well aware of the recruiting and is behind it, Leita said.

“He doesn’t want to leave the department without someone there he’s confident in,” Leita said.

- Pat Muir