Hayden’s contract with the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) expired on September 30, 2026. That’s after the Hayden City Council rejected the contract.
“I would say that the council was not comfortable with the amount of accountability that the county was able to provide that would give them a sense of surety of knowing that the money provided to the country was being spent in the benefit of the citizens,” said Lisa Ailport, Hayden City Administrator.
In a press release, the city council said it didn’t approve the contract for several reasons: Members wanted to understand the numbers behind overtime costs, how they’re charged, and why there’s a 40% overhead charge on top of deputy staffing costs. Officials also want the sheriff’s office to improve how it reports time spent in Hayden and understand whether that directly contributes to reducing crime or improving service in city limits.
“There was still a lack of information about, and I guess trust, in the numbers for the amount of overhead being charged to us,” Ailport said. “And that was predicated upon the fact that the council had been asking for reasonable accountability over the deputies' time within the city for the money that we were giving them. And we never were able to achieve that as well. So when you build all of those things, you stack them all on top of each other, our council just felt like we didn’t make any progress in accountability.”
For now, negotiations are continuing, but there’s no scheduled date for when a new contract will be in place. According to Ailport, residents are still protected: KCSO is required by Idaho’s constitution to enforce state laws.
Moving forward, Hayden and the sheriff's office are working to draft what they call an enhanced law enforcement services contract.
“For example,” Ailport said, “if we said, ‘Geez, we’re getting a lot of complaints about speeders on this residential street in this neighborhood, could you send officers over to do some enhanced services related to this particular task?’ We’re no longer able to request that because we’re not paying for those additional services.”
The city is actively working with KCSO to find a solution, said Ailport.
But leading up to these negotiations, the city was confused about who was supposed to be putting the contract together: the county board of commissioners, the sheriff’s office or the city, Ailport said.
“We are attempting to work with our service provider, the sheriffs, to try to figure out what they’re willing to provide, what we can pay.” Ailport said.
Once a contract is drafted, it will have to go to the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners, including Bruce Mattare.
“The next step is the sheriff should be ready, willing, and able to provide a report that accounts for the billable hours that the city pays each month,” said Mattare.
SPR reached out to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office for comment, but were referred to the commissioners and the city.
Hayden has retained Matrix Consulting Group to evaluate the city’s law enforcement options.
