Lake County sheriff outlines staffing plan, accreditation push and co-responder challenges

Sheriff Heath Spakano told the Lake County Board of County Commissioners on Oct. 11 that his office is pursuing a multi-year plan to raise minimum staffing, improve retention and pursue national accreditation while continuing outreach and public-safety programs.

“The first one we’ve identified is retention and trying to keep staff members,” Spakano said, describing internal promotion pathways that start civilian hires in court security or dispatch and move them into detention, the POST academy and patrol. “We’re able to hire people right out of high school…so now she’s applying to go to the POST academy and will turn 21 during that academy.”

The sheriff framed staffing as the primary budget driver: the office has 30 staff members as of the latest count, six current vacancies, about four or five applicants “in the pipeline” and a request to add roughly five more positions next year—mainly for patrol. Spakano said the department has been working with county finance staff on a five-year staffing-and-budget plan and called 2026 a key milestone for reaching the target staffing level.

Spakano said the office is pursuing accreditation through CALEA, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, a multi-year review that will examine policies, training, evidence-room procedures and reporting. “It’s gonna be a huge project for us,” he said, and staff from his operations-support office are leading the process.

Behavioral-health response and the co-responder model were recurring topics. The county previously hosted a co-responder program through a local provider but lost a grant; Spakano said the department applied again and did not receive funding. “The general feeling I got through their response was…they weren’t buying into how we’re gonna use the program,” he said, adding that grant-writing language — not the underlying model — appeared to be the obstacle.

Spakano described how co-responders work alongside deputies to de-escalate calls without immediately invoking law-enforcement powers: “A co-responder can come in, you know, as a non-law-enforcement capacity and civilian clothes and hopefully try to talk the situation down.” He also said deputies frequently perform that role when co-responders are not available, but noted the value of having trained, civilian responders who can operate without presenting weapons.

The sheriff highlighted wellness supports for staff, including a local therapist (“Becca”) and a former law-enforcement clinician (Dr. Lily Palmer) who can relate to officers’ experiences. Spakano said the office is exploring software to track deputies’ exposure to high-stress calls to facilitate earlier intervention.

On crime data and reporting, Spakano said dispatch and records software capture calls for service by type, location and time but that a recent software change has created a learning curve and some delay in pulling consistent historical reports. He said supervisors now review data in weekly meetings and that administrative staff are working to extract usable metrics and identify “hot zones” and trends.

Traffic safety, singled out by commissioners during the discussion, is a longstanding concern on Highway 91. Spakano said the department is revising the county’s model traffic code to better align with state statutes and that enforcement depends heavily on staffing and partnership with the Colorado State Patrol. He also described use of automated license-plate camera systems (Flock) for vehicle tracking at county entry points and cited at least one case where the system helped identify a suspect.

No formal votes or budget decisions were taken during the presentation. Commissioners and staff commended the sheriff’s collaborative approach with finance and other agencies and discussed possible next steps: producing community-facing crime trend reports, pursuing grant-writing improvements for a future co-responder application, exploring whether accreditation could reduce insurance costs, coordinating with CDOT or the State Patrol on Highway 91 studies, and continuing to develop the five-year staffing model.

Spakano closed by reiterating staffing as the critical constraint: “Presence factor is hard to answer without just, like, physically more people here,” and he asked for continued county support as hiring and accreditation work proceeds.