Churchill County Sheriff | Flock plate readers, requested and unfunded
The Sheriff's Office asked the county to fund five Flock cameras around the perimeter of the community, arguing that other jurisdictions' cameras already solve crimes here. A budget hearing took the money back out.
At a glance
- What was asked for
- A contract with Flock Safety for five plate reader cameras "set around the perimeter of our community", in the FY2024-25 supplemental budget request [1]
- The money
- Contracted Services account 100-201-52400, from $350,000.00 to $385,000.00, an increase of $35,000.00 [1]
- What the county called it
- "Sheriff Flock -License plate surveillance", a $10,000 line on a capital list [2]
- What happened
- "BUDGET HEARING REMOVED THE REQUESTED INCREASE AS THE LICENSE PLATE READER SYSTEM IS IN THE BUDGET TWICE, I LEFT THE REQUEST IN CAPITAL OUTLAY" [2]
- Whether any plate reader now operates in the county
- not established. One document in 1,545 mentions Flock Safety and it is the budget request. No readable minutes record a contract approved, signed or installed, and the EFF Atlas has no plate reader entry for this county [3]
How it happened
- Decision
The increase comes back out at the budget hearing
The county's budget worksheet records that the hearing removed the requested increase because the licence plate reader system appeared in the budget twice, leaving the request in capital outlay. A capital list carries a $10,000 line the county labels "Flock -License plate surveillance". [2]
- Context
The request, and the argument behind it
The Sheriff's Office supplemental request seeks $35,000 to establish a Flock Safety contract for five cameras, citing stolen vehicles, Amber and Silver alerts, and stating that cameras in other jurisdictions have already helped solve crimes within Churchill County. [1]
A request, in the county’s own words
Most entries on this site describe something a government bought. This one describes something it asked for and did not get, which is worth publishing for the same reason: the asking tells you what the office wanted and why.
The Sheriff’s Office wrote the justification into its supplemental budget request for 2024-25. It wanted a contract with Flock Safety for five plate reader cameras “set around the perimeter of our community”, to get alerts on stolen vehicles, Amber alerts, Silver alerts and stolen plates. Then it made the argument that matters:
“These cameras can also assist us and our surrounding counties in locating vehicles used in crimes just as their application in other jurisdictions has helped solve crimes within our community.”
The office is saying that cameras belonging to somebody else have already solved crimes inside Churchill County. Not that plate readers work in theory. That this county is already on the receiving end of a network it has not joined.
The third county to make the same argument
In Lyon County in November 2023, a lieutenant told commissioners that a benefit of Flock was “Lyon County and neighboring counties utilizing the same system to work together”. In Storey County, the Sheriff’s annual report says his office “played a major role in assisting other regional Law enforcement agencies obtain this same technology”. Now Churchill, in 2024, citing the neighbours’ cameras as a reason to buy its own.
Three counties, three budgets, three separate votes, and the same reasoning in each. There is no meeting anywhere at which somebody decides whether northern Nevada should have a regional plate reader network. It arrives one county at a time, and each county’s decision makes the next one easier to argue for.
What the budget did
The county’s own worksheet has the answer, typed in capitals into a notes field:
“BUDGET HEARING REMOVED THE REQUESTED INCREASE AS THE LICENSE PLATE READER SYSTEM IS IN THE BUDGET TWICE, I LEFT THE REQUEST IN CAPITAL OUTLAY.”
A capital list elsewhere carries the line “Sheriff Flock -License plate surveillance” at $10,000. “Licence plate surveillance” is the county’s description, not ours.
A later note is plainer still: “License Plate Readers (LPR’s) Our budget was cut in this area last year and historically has not been sufficient.”
What we can and cannot say
Exactly one document out of 1,545 mentions Flock Safety, and it is that request. No minutes we could read record a plate reader contract being approved, signed or installed, and the EFF Atlas holds no plate reader entry for this county.
So this page does not say Churchill County has plate readers, and it does not say it has none. It says the Sheriff’s Office asked, described what it wanted as licence plate surveillance, and did not receive the money in the years we can see.
Thirty per cent of this county’s record is scanned images we cannot read, which is the highest share of any Nevada county on this site. A decision could be sitting in that portion.
On the map
The community has mapped 1 device 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 →
- Location road not yet identified license plate reader ↗
Street names from reverse geocoding — © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
What we do not know
- Whether any plate reader was ever bought by another route, in a later budget year or with grant money.
- Which neighbouring agencies' cameras the Sheriff's Office was referring to, and what access this county already has to data from cameras it does not own.
- Whether the five proposed camera locations were ever identified, and where "the perimeter of our community" would have been.
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 Churchill County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Churchill 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
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- 3.
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