Bingham County Sheriff | The Bingham County camera and door system

Bingham County has been buying cameras for years without ever deciding to have a camera system. The purchases arrive on a form called a Prior Approval for Major Purchase. A department head brings one, the minutes record the amount and the fund, a commissioner moves, another seconds, everyone votes in favor. Five cameras through the courthouse and three at a ball field in July 2023, held up to see whether a safety grant would pay.^[3] Four network switches in September 2022 that the IT Director said would be moved “to cover the County camera project”.^[10] The county’s surplus lists show what is left when the equipment wears out: fifteen miscellaneous security cameras from four manufacturers, three camera servers, and one Axis camera marked “Doesn’t work - From jail”.^[11]

One contract

On 25 March 2026 that stopped being the pattern. The Sheriff brought the Board a contract the minutes call the JSA Contract, and described it this way:

the proposed contract will bring all equipment up to date, including cameras which will be ungraded when they need and the cost is calculated within the yearly cost. This will assist in allowing all equipment to be on one program as well. The start up cost is $169,162.00, with an annual payment will be $74,612.71.

The next line of the minutes is the whole of the Board’s response: “The Board had no issues.” A commissioner moved to approve and sign, another seconded, all voted in favor.^[1]

That item is the most consequential surveillance decision in this county’s published record, and it runs to four sentences. It does not name a vendor. It does not say how many cameras there are, where they are, what they cover, how long the recordings are kept, or who may look at them. The word “ungraded” is the clerk’s, and the sense is plainly “upgraded”: the point of the contract is that replacements are included in the annual price, so the county will not have to approve a camera again.

Seven weeks later the vendor appears. On 13 May 2026 the Board took Addendum #2 from M2 Automation, a Boise integrator, “for addition to M2, JSA Annual Contract for coverage of future camera services”, at $9,839.55 on top of the $74,612.71, bringing the annual figure to $84,002.26. A lieutenant explained that another camera server had to be added because the current system was reaching the end of its life. The Board held the item for clarification on the amounts, then approved it the same day.^[2]

At the same meeting it bought the storage. One premium 160 terabyte high capacity enterprise network video recorder, $81,244.00, needed so the new system could “record and store footage in the jail”.^[2]

A hundred and sixty terabytes is a great deal of video. Nothing in the county’s record says how long that recorder is meant to hold it.

The doors

Running alongside the cameras is a second program with the same vendor. In July 2025 the Board approved access control for the courthouse’s first floor at $69,091.01.^[6] In April 2026 it approved the second floor at $82,553.25, from payments in lieu of taxes and whatever other funds could be found.^[7] In August 2026 an M2 Automation quote for three more doors, $17,900.43, arrived in the agenda packet for the meeting of 12 August. The county publishes its minutes a month at a time and has not yet published that month, so whether the Board approved it is not yet on the record.^[8]

That quote is the most detailed surveillance document this county publishes, and it is an attachment. Its device schedule lists, for each controlled door, a card reader and keypad, a door position contact, a request to exit motion sensor, cabling, a lockset, and a line reading “Video Surveillance Task”. Access control and cameras are being built by one company, under one annual contract.

A card reader records who opened which door and when. That is a different kind of record from a camera: it names people rather than showing them, it is small enough to keep forever, and it is generated by employees going to work. Nothing in the county’s record sets a rule for it.

The time the county thought about it

There is one occasion in this record where Bingham County stopped and considered what a camera does, and it is worth reading in full because nothing like it happens again.

In April 2022 the probation supervisor asked to turn on the audio in six cameras covering the hallways and front entryway of the probation department. He said the cameras had been bought with audio in mind, that conversations worth capturing happened almost weekly, and that probationers had discussed drug use and ways to beat a test. He said the camera systems “have never been used to capture something that an employee says or does”.^[4]

County legal counsel had researched it. If the Board authorized the audio, he said, there was a way to eliminate the expectation of privacy in the areas concerned, and it would have to be done to comply with Idaho Code. He added that “If there were an error in following code, it would be a felony charge and could be a serious issue”, and that signs would be needed saying that a recording system was in place and that individuals were being recorded. Later in the same discussion he said there was legal risk if someone challenged whether signage was enough notice, and that there could be future litigation.^[4]

A commissioner said she had major concerns, that people “may see it as not just trying to get audio from the clients but audio from anyone that enters the building”, and that the last time this had come up, the recording had been in a common area with a staff member in it. The Chief Deputy Sheriff objected on different grounds: an accidental recording of detectives discussing a case “could be a discovery issue”. The chairman said he would be in favor of audio in the hallways, and the Board discussed switching it on only during drug testing.^[4]

The item ends: “The audio within the Probation Department will remain turned off at this time.”

Two things in that discussion have not recurred. One is a county lawyer explaining, on the record, what the law requires of a recording device. The other is a commissioner asking who else would be recorded. Every camera decision since has been a price and a fund number.

What we do not know

The county has never published a camera policy. In four and a half years of minutes there is no rule on who may pull a recording, for what reason, or how long it is kept. The one retention fact in the whole record is incidental: in 2022 the probation supervisor said the system recorded over itself, and that footage three weeks old was already gone. What replaced it is the 160 terabyte recorder, and no one has said what it holds or for how long.

If you want an answer

The Board of County Commissioners meets through the week at 501 North Maple Street, Room 204, in Blackfoot. The Sheriff has a standing weekly update slot, which is where the camera items have landed, so the agenda will say “Weekly update meeting with Sheriff Gardner” rather than anything about cameras. The county posts only the current agenda, so a resident who wants to see what was on last month’s has to wait for the month’s minutes.

To get in front of the Board you fill in its Request for Meeting form, which asks what you want to discuss, how long you need, whether you want a decision, and under what authority you are asking. The Commission Clerk schedules it.