Hayden rejects FY2027 sheriff contract; enhanced coverage after Sept. 30 remains unresolved

HAYDEN, Idaho — The Hayden City Council declined Tuesday to approve a new enhanced law-enforcement services agreement with Kootenai County, leaving unresolved what enhanced policing coverage the city will receive after its current contract expires Sept. 30.

Council members Ed DePriest, David Erickson and Matt Roetter voted 3-0 not to approve the proposed fiscal year 2027 agreement. Councilman Tom Shafer was absent but submitted a written statement urging the council to accept the agreement or continue month to month while awaiting the final Matrix Consulting report.

The decision does not eliminate the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office’s responsibility to enforce state penal laws within Hayden. It does, however, leave uncertain what dedicated staffing and enhanced services Hayden will receive beginning Oct. 1.

No replacement agreement, temporary extension or alternative policing plan was approved Tuesday.

WATCH: KCSO monthly law-enforcement report and Hayden City Council contract discussion — Sept. 22, 2026

The City issued a press release Wednesday saying it is not prepared to approve the agreement in its current form and is negotiating a revised enhanced-services contract with Kootenai County.

The release said Hayden wants a clearer understanding of how the countywide Justice Fund supports baseline law enforcement and how that service compares with the additional service purchased through the City’s contract. It also said expectations in any future agreement should be measurable and trackable.

The release did not announce a temporary extension, revised staffing level, Oct. 1 service plan or date for another council vote.

The proposed agreement totaled $1,077,208—approximately $3,262 below the $1,080,470 limit established by the council during its budget process.

It would have provided:

The current agreement provides five dedicated patrol deputies. County Finance Director Brandi Falcon said the proposed contract reduced that number to four to remain within Hayden’s budget limit.

Falcon wrote that the county calculated $769,436 in personnel and overtime expenses and applied a 40% overhead rate. She said the county’s actual overhead was approximately 47%.

Overtime was listed separately in the FY2027 proposal. Falcon said overtime had been included within the county’s actual overhead calculation during FY2026 because no separate Hayden overtime budget had been established.

The proposed agreement allowed either party to terminate it with 60 days’ written notice. It also gave Hayden a three-day termination option if the City determined that enforcement of its ordinances was unsatisfactory.

The Kootenai County Board of Commissioners approved the proposed agreement Sept. 15.

City Administrator Lisa Ailport told the council that staff began requesting the FY2027 agreement in April but did not receive it until late the previous week. That left the council to consider the agreement during its final regularly scheduled meeting before the new fiscal year.

“I wish we could have gotten it to you guys sooner, but it’s here when we got it from the county,” Ailport said.

Mayor Alan Davis credited Ailport and KCSO Capt. Kevin Smart for working on the agreement for months and said the late timing was not caused by a lack of effort from City staff.

The timing echoed the previous year’s negotiations. The FY2025 agreement expired Sept. 30, 2025, and the parties used a series of one-month extensions while negotiating.

Hayden approved the FY2026 agreement Dec. 19. County commissioners completed their approval Jan. 6, more than three months into the fiscal year.

Although he could not attend Tuesday’s meeting, Councilman Tom Shafer submitted a written statement to the mayor, council members, City attorney and City staff shortly before noon.

Shafer acknowledged that county commissioners had not collaborated well with Hayden, that the proposed agreement arrived late, that it reduced the number of patrol deputies and that it contained no substantive improvement in reporting.

He nevertheless urged the council not to make a major change in Hayden’s law-enforcement model before receiving the final Matrix Consulting study.

“We have paid for this study and consultation,” Shafer wrote. “We need to wait for the final product before acting. Otherwise, we risk doing a great disservice to our constituents.”

Shafer warned that contracting with another municipality could become a temporary step toward creating a Hayden Police Department before the City fully understood the cost and operational consequences.

“This is an emotional matter,” Shafer wrote. “I can observe that our county partners have not worked collaboratively with us, which has given good cause for disappointment. But making decisions rooted in emotions, void of objective data, is also not acting in good faith to our constituents.”

Shafer recommended that the council approve the proposed county agreement or continue the existing arrangement month to month while awaiting the study’s final findings.

During the meeting, Davis asked whether Shafer’s statement should be read aloud. The three council members said they had reviewed it, and City legal counsel suggested attaching it to the meeting minutes. The statement was not read into the public record before the vote.

DePriest and Roetter said their criticism was directed toward county leadership—not the deputies serving Hayden.

DePriest cited delayed information, unresolved reporting questions, county jail costs and Commissioner Bruce Mattare’s public-safety policy proposal. He suggested allowing KCSO to continue its statutory responsibilities while Hayden explored another agency or a municipal enforcement operation focused on matters such as traffic and animal complaints.

DePriest said he had lost trust and confidence in the county’s political leadership and was “ready to cut the cord.”

Roetter’s remarks also focused heavily on Mattare and Sheriff Bob Norris. He criticized Mattare’s interest in a Los Angeles County cost-recovery model, described the dispute as a matter of trust and questioned whether Hayden was being charged twice for overhead through county property taxes and the City contract.

“I don’t want to contract with them because I don’t trust them,” DePriest said when Davis asked what terms could make a future county agreement acceptable.

Erickson said he was balancing resident safety against the council’s responsibility to determine what taxpayers receive for the money being spent. He ultimately joined DePriest and Roetter in voting against the agreement.

Davis urged the three council members present not to reject the agreement outright. He distinguished the countywide service supported through county taxes from the dedicated and enhanced service purchased through the City’s contract.

Davis also warned that rejecting the agreement could create a gap while the City considered its next steps.

City legal counsel clarified that an Association of Idaho Cities legal analysis criticizing Mattare’s proposed legislative model did not conclude that Hayden’s existing voluntary contract with Kootenai County was unconstitutional.

The Justice Fund became central to the council’s debate, but Idaho law does not establish it solely as a sheriff’s patrol fund.

Idaho Code § 31-4602⁠ authorizes counties to use a Justice Fund for the operation of the sheriff’s office; construction, remodeling, operation and maintenance of county jails, juvenile detention facilities and county courthouses; operation of the prosecuting attorney’s office; public-defender and court-appointed counsel services; and district-court support provided by the clerk’s office.

The law requires the Justice Fund to remain separate from the County’s current-expense fund and limits its expenditures to those statutory purposes. Money may be spent annually or accumulated for designated capital improvements.

An April 2025 memo from the Kootenai County Auditor’s Office further identifies services supported through the fund, including sheriff administration, civil services, patrol, detectives, animal control, records, SWAT, search and rescue, recreational safety, driver licensing, sheriff maintenance, the jail, prosecutor, public defense, juvenile detention and probation, and adult misdemeanor probation.

County Auditor calculations indicate that Hayden properties accounted for approximately $2.57 million of the FY2025 Justice Fund levy. Using the County’s estimate that patrol represented 31% of the fund, approximately $797,002 was associated with patrol.

That figure is an estimate, not a record of actual patrol spending within Hayden. Justice Fund revenue is pooled to support the broader county justice system. The Auditor said the calculation also does not include Hayden’s separate $600,000 voter-approved law-enforcement override levy.

County records describe the law-enforcement response supported by Justice Fund taxes within incorporated cities as an “as needed” service. Hayden’s separate municipal contract purchases a higher service level, including personnel assigned specifically to the City and enforcement of City ordinances.

The statute establishes what the Justice Fund may support. It does not determine whether overhead charged through Hayden’s separate contract duplicates costs already supported by the fund. That accounting question remains unresolved.

The incident-cost calculation discussed by the council comes from a Feb. 17 county meeting attended by Roetter, Mattare, Norris and county finance staff.

According to the meeting minutes, a spreadsheet showed 5,837 incidents in Hayden—approximately one-fifth of all KCSO incidents. The County Auditor later said Mattare created the spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet assigned an average cost of $391.86 to each incident and calculated more than $2.2 million in total incident costs. It used the County’s estimated $797,002 patrol share and also counted the City’s approximately $1.14 million payment for enhanced services.

The same presentation attributed $797,002 of Hayden’s estimated $2.5 million Justice Fund contribution to patrol. It also counted the City’s approximately $1.14 million payment for enhanced services.

The method demonstrates the number of incidents attributed to Hayden, but it does not measure the actual time or number of deputies used for each incident. A brief citizen-assistance call and a complex criminal investigation receive the same average cost under a per-incident calculation.

The method demonstrates the number of incidents attributed to Hayden, but it does not measure the actual time or number of deputies used for each incident. A brief citizen-assistance call and a complex criminal investigation receive the same average cost under a per-incident calculation.

The meeting minutes report a $693,306 shortfall, but the summarized figures do not show how that amount was reached.

After the vote, KCSO Lt. Zachary Sifford told the council that several statements made during the discussion were not necessarily factual and could be repeated on social media as fact.

Sifford said KCSO can track time. The unresolved difficulty, he said, is producing a report proving whether every assigned deputy remained inside Hayden while also accounting for other county deputies who entered the City to assist.

He directly disputed Roetter’s statement that Hayden does not have dedicated deputies.

“Your five deputies are dedicated deputies,” Sifford said.

Those deputies sometimes leave Hayden when they are the closest unit to an injury crash, domestic disturbance or another priority call, he said. Other county deputies likewise enter Hayden to provide assistance.

A complete accounting could therefore involve the movements of more than the five assigned deputies and potentially the Sheriff’s Office’s broader operational staff.

“We’re not just tracking five deputies,” Sifford said. “We’re tracking 104 sworn personnel on the operation side from the undersheriff down.”

Sifford said KCSO understands that Hayden wants receipts documenting what it receives through the contract. He said the Sheriff’s Office was consulting other agencies and analysts to improve its reporting.

“We’re frustrated as an operations command group,” Sifford said. “There’s nothing more that I want to be able to do than come in here and show you the minutes—and show the community the minutes.”

Roetter and DePriest also cited a Matrix Consulting Group draft finding that described 61.2% of the assigned deputies’ modeled net available hours as “uncommitted.”

Council members repeatedly characterized that time as unaccounted for, but that is not how Matrix defines the term.

Matrix uses “uncommitted” interchangeably with proactive time: estimated on-duty capacity remaining after community-generated call workload is deducted.

That is time potentially available for traffic enforcement, directed patrol, business and security checks, community contacts, follow-up work and other deputy-initiated activity.

Using 2025 dispatch data, Matrix identified 2,477 community-generated calls and estimated 2,778 workload hours.

The consultant estimated that five assigned deputies provide 7,161 net available patrol hours after leave, training, court and administrative time are deducted. That calculation produced the 61.2% proactive-time figure.

Matrix called the percentage extraordinarily high compared with its preferred 40% to 45% range. Based on workload alone, the consultant calculated that four patrol deputies would be sufficient for Hayden’s present call volume.

The calculation does not account for minimum staffing, shift coverage or response-time requirements.

The draft also identified 2,270 self-initiated incidents, including proactive patrol, security checks, traffic activity and business checks.

Matrix nevertheless warns that some KCSO data may be missing and that dispatch records cannot establish where deputies spent all of their proactive time or how that time was otherwise used.

The report therefore describes the percentage as theoretical capacity—not a confirmed account of deputy activity.

Sifford said he first learned of the percentage during Tuesday’s meeting and likewise cautioned against equating uncommitted time with missing or unaccounted time.

Activities such as informal resident contacts may not be manually entered as individual events, he said.

“It could be a procedural thing that we’re doing—that we’re not manually entering things to show you where we are,” Sifford said.

Mattare responded Wednesday through his campaign website, accusing the council of placing politics ahead of public safety. He urged Hayden to reconsider, extend the existing agreement and negotiate stronger reporting requirements while maintaining dedicated coverage.

Mattare also wrote that the Sheriff’s Office had not provided Hayden with requested time reporting despite his support for paper logs and even a possible stipend for deputies completing them.

That acknowledgment aligns with the council’s underlying concern that detailed time accounting remains unavailable, although Mattare sharply disagrees with rejecting the agreement as the remedy.

The disagreement continued publicly on Mattare’s campaign Facebook page, where Roetter accused Mattare of pursuing a “California-style” model and questioned his relationship with Norris. The exchange documented the political conflict surrounding the agreement but did not resolve whether Hayden’s contract costs are duplicative or whether the proposed FY2027 agreement provides an appropriate service level.

During the law-enforcement report that followed the contract vote, Sifford said theft and vandalism numbers had increased.

He attributed part of the theft increase to traveling vehicle burglars targeting parking lots, shopping areas and trailheads. One suspect had been arrested in North Dakota after a warrant was issued in Kootenai County, he said.

Sifford said the reported sexual-assault cases he reviewed involved some relationship between the people involved rather than stranger assaults.

He described 19 traffic crashes during the reporting period as generally consistent with Hayden’s historical numbers. Construction and additional vehicles being routed onto the same roads may be contributing factors, he said.

The immediate question is whether Hayden and Kootenai County will approve another temporary extension before Sept. 30 or allow the enhanced-services agreement to expire.

The City’s Sept. 23 press release confirms that negotiations are continuing, but it does not identify an interim agreement or contingency plan.

Council discussion also referenced Mattare’s effort to pursue changes through the Idaho Legislature. No proposed legislation or future statutory change would, by itself, establish an enhanced-services arrangement for Hayden beginning Oct. 1. The City and County still need an immediate agreement if dedicated coverage is to continue without interruption.

Council discussed sending longer-term law-enforcement questions through the City’s Public Safety Commission and potentially holding a workshop.

The commission will meet Sept. 28 at 1 PM. Its agenda does not list the FY2027 contract as a separate action item. Commissioners are, however, scheduled to review Hayden’s May through August law-enforcement reports and take action on their review of the Matrix draft law-enforcement study.

The agenda provides for visitor and public comment, limited to three minutes per person.

No date has been announced for the City Council to consider a temporary extension or revised annual agreement.

Residents will continue to have access to KCSO enforcement of state penal laws after Sept. 30.

What remains unanswered is whether Hayden will retain dedicated patrol personnel, what response times residents should expect and how City ordinances will be enforced if no temporary or annual agreement is reached.