Kootenai County commissioners discuss publishing sheriff's office dashboard

A majority of the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners on April 7 discussed publishing a sheriff's-office dashboard that would display district-level crime and calls-for-service statistics on the county website.

The chair introduced a February report prepared for the board and said the goal is to give residents an accessible view of what the sheriff's office is responding to across districts. The packet contained examples from other jurisdictions, including weekly and monthly stat reports, that the board said county staff could use as models.

Sheriff Robert Norris supported publishing the data but urged adding mental-health incidents (including attempted suicide) and traffic-collision responses to the metrics. "I'd like to include mental health, mental health or suicide or attempt suicide as part of the calls for service," Norris said, while noting "Both of those require a lot of time" to document and clear.

Under Sheriff Brett Nelson said the sheriff's crime analyst already prepares a weekly internal report and that the office could make similar documents public if the board wants them on the public record. A commissioner summarized the policy rationale: "You can't manage what you can't measure," and members generally expressed support for posting the sheriff's statistics online.

No formal motion or vote was recorded; commissioners and staff agreed to pursue posting the sheriff's statistics and to work with the sheriff's office to define which categories to publish and how to account for the analyst's workload. The board moved on to the next agenda items.

The board did not set a publication date or approve a specific dataset during the meeting; staff and the sheriff's office will develop the reporting approach for future consideration.