Hayden councilman presses county on overtime accounting as sheriff defends service
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Summary
A Hayden city councilman pressed Kootenai County commissioners and Sheriff Robert Norris for records showing how deputy overtime billed to Hayden and Dalton Gardens is calculated; county officials said payroll classifications produce the dollar amounts but the activity system cannot yet produce minute-by-minute geographic time logs.
Matt Rotor, a Hayden city councilman, challenged Kootenai County officials on Feb. 17 over how the county accounts for deputy overtime charged to Hayden and nearby Dalton Gardens, citing public records he said show $46,689.70 billed to Hayden and $3,755.05 to Dalton Gardens.
"Hayden was charged $46,689.70, and Dalton was charged $3,755.05 for deputy overtime," said Matt Rotor, who said he submitted public-records requests and analyzed deputy calls to assess whether the contract delivers the dedicated staffing Hayden was promised.
Sheriff Robert Norris and county staff responded that the dollar amounts Rotor cited come from payroll entries, not a geographic activity log. "That is the expense that is booked to the Hayden budget through the payroll process," said Brandy Falcon of the auditor’s office, explaining that auditors receive timesheets from the sheriff’s office and post overtime to the appropriate jurisdictional budget classifications.
Norris said the county’s Motorola dispatch and records system is not fully integrated with the payroll system and cannot provide second-by-second, location-based time accounting. He said the county is working with Motorola and other local agencies to develop reports that could give cities more confidence in invoicing. "We are working on that solution," Norris said, adding that accounting for minutes and hours is an acknowledged problem the sheriff's office is trying to fix.
Rotor said the absence of itemized, incident-level time records undermines trust and complicates a consultant-led review of Hayden’s future law-enforcement needs. "I failed to see where you've proved that we received 10 deputies for our past contract," Rotor said, pressing for records that he said did not exist or were refused in public-records responses.
Sheriff Norris and county commissioners disputed assertions that deputies were misallocated, saying the county uses standard cost-allocation and payroll classifications and that cities already receive a measurable level of service. "The sheriff's office does an outstanding job in the city of Hayden," Norris said, and he characterized the county's approach as a regional model rather than a set of separate police departments.
The sheriff recommended a regional staffing model that targets roughly one officer per 1,000 residents rather than the two-per-1,000 staffing typical of municipal police departments. County commissioners said they are seeking a standard contract and a cost-recovery model that clarifies rates and service levels.
During the discussion, Commissioner Metari said he is working with Motorola representatives and local police IT staff to explore report formats that could be adapted for Kootenai County. Commissioner Duncan and others said they would continue to seek better documentation to support intergovernmental billing.
Several members of the public addressed the board after the discussion. Amy McCamley, a Hayden resident and business owner, told commissioners she supports keeping the sheriff’s office as the provider in Hayden and cautioned against creating a local police department and spending on a new consultant study.
The county did not adopt any immediate change to Hayden’s contract at the meeting but commissioners and sheriff’s staff agreed to continue work on reporting and to provide whatever documentation the county can produce for the consultant’s review.
