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Jerome County Sheriff | The Sheriff's plate readers

Eight rented license plate readers that reached the county's published record as one sentence in a budget request, were next named when the Board asked three candidates for sheriff how they would keep them lawful, and lost their funding for the year beginning October 2026 on a unanimous vote.

At a glance

How many
8 cameras, rented [3]
Price
$12,000 a year [1]
Who approved it
Nobody, in public. The Board never voted on the cameras, the contract or the vendor. The program appears in the record as a budget line and leaves it as a budget line [1] [3]
Where the cameras are
Not stated in any document either body published. Volunteers have mapped nine plate readers in this county, none of them naming an operator [1] [3]
How long the data is kept
Not stated in any public record. The Sheriff said the county rents the cameras and owns the data, which describes who holds it rather than for how long [3]
Who else can see it
Not stated in any public record [3]
A written policy
Said to exist, never published [2]
Audits
Said to exist, never published [2]
Where the money came from
County operations, the investigation line [1] [3]

How it happened

  1. Procurement

    One sentence in a budget request

    At the Board's budget hearings the Sheriff asks for ten percent wage increases and explains increases in six budget lines. The minutes record that "the large increase in the investigation line was for license plates readers for $12,000 per year". That is the entire public record of how this county acquired plate readers. No vendor is named, no camera count is given, and the Board takes no separate vote on the equipment. [1]

  2. Debate

    The Board asks three candidates, and gets three different answers

    Interviewing the three candidates recommended to fill a vacancy in the Sheriff's Office, a commissioner asks each of them "how do you ensure that policies such as the use of technology are used appropriately and within legal bounds?" All three answer about the plate readers. One says "he knows that there have been issues with the use of technology, especially the flock cameras". One says "There has been a policy implemented regarding the flock cameras. There are audits to make sure that things are being used properly." The third says "he feels that there needs to be a closer look taken at the flock cameras. He is not sure if there is a policy, but if there is it needs to be looked into more than it is", and that he would like to hold a public meeting on how they are used. [2]

  3. Decision

    The money goes to wages

    A commissioner asks whether the Sheriff's proposed budget changes include a contract with Flock cameras. The minutes record that the Sheriff "does not want to have the cameras in the budget going forward, he expressed the potential of the state legislature addressing Flock cameras next session, and wanting to get he county out of the current contract. He stated that there are 8 cameras that they rent and then own the data of. There were also issues of individuals misusing the cameras across the country and locally and so he also does not want to have them in Jerome County any longer." A deputy adds that there are "issues going forward with Flock cameras with the fourth amendment and the right to privacy", and that his worry is a serious case thrown out over evidence from the cameras. Asked whether anyone else, such as the state, could rent the cameras already standing, the Sheriff says the state is unlikely to. The motion to move the money to wages passes unanimously. [3]

The usual question about a plate reader program is who approved it. In Jerome County nobody did, at least not in public. The Board of County Commissioners never voted on these cameras, never saw a contract for them, and was never told a vendor’s name until the Sheriff who inherited the program came to ask for the money back.

What the record holds instead is a budget line. On 11 June 2024 the Sheriff explained a set of increases to the Board and said the large one in the investigation line was for license plate readers at $12,000 a year.[1] That is one sentence in a thirty-five page set of minutes about wages, vehicles and detention deputies, and for two years it is the only place in the county’s published record where the cameras exist at all.

What the Board knew, and when

The next time the readers are named, the Board is interviewing people who want to run the office. In April 2026 three candidates came before the commissioners, and each was asked the same question about keeping the use of technology lawful.[2] All three answered about the cameras, and the answers did not agree with each other. One said a policy had been implemented and that audits check it is followed. One said he was not sure a policy existed and wanted a public meeting about how the cameras are used. One said there had been problems.

Three people who had all worked in or around that office gave three different accounts of whether the program had rules. The Board, which had been paying for it for two years, was in no position to settle the question, because nothing about the program had ever come before it except the money.

The money leaves

On 3 September 2026 the new Sheriff came to a budget and wages discussion, and a commissioner asked directly whether the proposed changes included a Flock contract.[3] They did not, and the reasons the Sheriff gave were these: the legislature might take the subject up next session, he wanted the county out of the current contract, there were eight cameras the office rented and whose data the county owned, and there had been “issues of individuals misusing the cameras across the country and locally”. A deputy added a Fourth Amendment concern and a practical one, that evidence from the cameras could cost the county a case.

The Board asked whether anyone else could rent the cameras already standing, the state for instance. The Sheriff said the state was unlikely to want them. The motion to move the money into wages passed unanimously.

What this looks like from outside

Nine plate readers are mapped in this county by volunteers, and not one of them records who operates it. The county’s own record says eight, rented. Those two counts are close, and we are not going to tell you they are the same cameras, because no document says where any of the county’s eight stand.

A program ran here for two years at $12,000 a year, photographed an unknown number of people, and was both started and stopped without a single public decision about the cameras themselves. Both times it moved, it moved as a number in a budget.

On the map

The community has mapped 9 devices of this type in the county on OpenStreetMap. These are community reports: the vendor and operator of each point are unverified, and none is confirmed to belong to this system. See them on the map →

Street names from reverse geocoding — © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

What we do not know

What you can do

Show up

Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Jerome County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Jerome County →

Protect yourself

Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.

Surveillance Self-Defense →

Sources

  1. 1.
    Jerome County Board of County Commissioners minutes, 11 June 2024, Sheriff and detention budget requests · Meeting record · · accessed
  2. 2.
    Jerome County Board of County Commissioners minutes, 16 April 2026, sheriff candidate interviews · Meeting record · · accessed
  3. 3.
    Jerome County Board of County Commissioners minutes, 3 September 2026, Sheriff's budget and wages discussion · Meeting record · · accessed

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