Hayden council backs scaled county contract, directs staff to seek lower overhead and preserve city vehicles

Hayden — The Hayden City Council and members of the city’s Public Safety Commission met in a special workshop to review a county‑drafted law enforcement services agreement and agreed to pursue a lower‑cost staffing package while pushing the county for clearer overhead and accountability reporting.

Hayden City Attorney Fonda Jovic, who led the session, told the group that the county provided a contract with three options and that the workshop’s immediate goal was to reach a one‑year agreement aligned to the city’s already‑approved budget while identifying negotiable terms. “The goal of today is… get through this agreement to get 1 year in place to protect the city,” Jovic said.

Councilors and commissioners spent much of the meeting testing contract language and Exhibit A reporting requirements. Jovic said staff obtained 2024 call‑for‑service data and detective hours to support accountability discussions: Hayden had 22,011 calls for service compared with 64,275 for the county, about 35%, and staff reported roughly 307.25 detective hours per month available to Hayden under current arrangements.

Commissioners with law‑enforcement experience pushed the council to prioritize results‑based metrics (arrests, citations, cleared reports and clearance codes) rather than raw CAD totals, warning that officer‑initiated security checks and other entries can inflate raw call counts. “What I care about… is what is an arrest, a citation, or a report,” said Sean Meyer, a commission member.

Ownership of vehicles funded with city money was a recurring point. Council members argued the city should retain capital equipment it paid for rather than giving it to the county; councilors asked staff to clarify paragraph language so that vehicles funded by Hayden would remain the city’s capital assets unless the council decides otherwise.

The budget dispute focused on the county’s overhead charge. The draft options included an overhead calculation that ranged from a 40% allocation up to 60% for Option 3; council members questioned the jump to 60% and directed staff to press the county for a reduction. Several council members said that if overhead could be negotiated to 40%, the city could afford an additional deputy within Option 3’s budget.

Council members repeatedly referenced a prior pledge to voters for 10 deputies; several said that while the long‑term goal may be to restore that level, the immediate, fiscally responsible path is to accept a smaller staffing package for one year while aggressively pursuing data, vehicle ownership, and overhead clarifications. “We promised these people we promised the citizens 10 people,” one commissioner said, while others argued the city must balance promises with current fiscal constraints.

On finances, staff told the group the city has already budgeted $1,054,000 for law enforcement services for the coming year and that some one‑time funds (for a lieutenant vehicle that has not yet been purchased) could be repurposed to add an extra deputy if overhead negotiations succeed.

Before adjourning into an executive session, council members gave staff direction: negotiate for a 40% overhead rate (or lower) with the county, seek clarity on vehicle ownership and depreciation for city‑funded units, produce pointed questions about how Hayden’s justice‑fund contributions translate into deputy staffing, and prepare monthly, results‑oriented reports (reports taken, arrests, cases referred to detectives, citations and traffic stops) for council and commission review.

The meeting concluded with a motion, second and roll‑call vote to enter executive session under Idaho law; Council members White, Schaeffer, Dupree and Rotor voted yes.