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Commissioners direct work on standard county template for city policing contracts
Summary
Kootenai County commissioners agreed Sept. 9 to pursue a single county contract template for law-enforcement services to cities and to have the sheriff’s office and auditor produce measurable service-level and cost data for negotiations, with a planned meeting involving Hayden city officials.
Kootenai County commissioners on Sept. 9 moved to standardize county contracts for law-enforcement services to cities and directed staff to produce comparable service and cost data for use in negotiations.
Commissioners said the county should stop negotiating different contract forms city-by-city and instead use a single county template with a city-specific addendum that sets the price and the level of service. County counsel circulated a draft template to the board prior to the meeting and described it as modeled on standard terms used by other Idaho counties.
The board and sheriff’s staff discussed the technical challenge of producing apples-to-apples metrics for city contracts. Sheriff’s staff said they currently provide monthly crime-analysis statistics to Hayden but still struggle to extract minute-for-minute patrol-time figures from the department’s records system. The sheriff’s office said the records system can capture GPS location and timestamps from patrol vehicles, but reconciling that data into a reproducible, minute-for-minute measure requires additional work, and vendor support (Motorola/Spillman) has been contacted.
The sheriff’s office proposed sending staff to study agencies that have developed the needed analytics, and commissioners indicated support for allocating funds if the county needs travel or training to resolve the data questions. County counsel and the sheriff’s office said a standardized template should reserve an exhibit or addendum to list the city-specific staffing, vehicle and performance-measure details.
Hayden had submitted a proposed FY26 contract, and commissioners signaled they expect the sheriff and auditor to use an agreed rate methodology (auditor-supplied cost calculations) and then negotiate service levels with cities within that framework. The sheriff’s undersheriff offered to meet with Hayden’s city manager and mayor along with county finance staff (Brandy) to present service options and pricing based on the three options the board previously provided; commissioners asked that any such negotiations be reported back to the board.
No final contract was approved at the Sept. 9 meeting; the board’s actions were limited to directing the sheriff’s office, county counsel and auditor to proceed with the standardized template and to develop measurable service and cost data for use in upcoming city negotiations.
