The Detention Center
Kearny County Jail
- Operated byKearny County Sheriff's Office
- Beds20 total (16 male, 4 female) per Kansas Sheriffs' Association profile
- Out-of-county / daily board rate$30.00 per day
- Jail administrator named (within Sheriff's Office)Mike Fontenot, per Kansas Sheriffs' Association profile — the sheriff himself, so jail_administrator is recorded as null rather than as a separate appointed position
- Community programsOffenderWatch online sex-offender search, VINE victim notification, D.A.R.E.
- Open recordsA 'Kansas Open Records Act' request brochure is published on the Sheriff's Office page, covering common exceptions to KORA
- Budget, roster, deaths, PREA, inspections, contracts, bond info, feesNot found on the county's Sheriff page or homepage
- Also sourced toKearny County, KS — Sheriff page — https://www.kearnycountykansas.com/sheriff
Source: Kansas Sheriffs' Association — Kearny County profile · checked 2026-09-17
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds20 total / 16 male / 4 female (per Kansas Sheriffs' Association, not the county's own site, so not used to satisfy 'capacity' check)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Michael Fontenot
- TitleKearny County Sheriff
- Under SheriffGarnett A. Hartman
- Office address106 E Washington St., Lakin, KS 67860 (PO Box P)
- Phone(620) 355-6211
- Runs the jailYes, as statutory jailer under K.S.A. 19-811
- How the office is filledElected countywide for a four-year term under K.S.A. 19-801a
- Also sourced toKearny County, KS — Sheriff page — https://www.kearnycountykansas.com/sheriff
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Kansas Sheriffs' Association — Kearny County profile · checked 2026-09-17
The Judges
Kansas Constitution Art. 3 §6 makes partisan election of district judges the default; a judicial district may instead adopt nonpartisan (merit) selection under K.S.A. 20-2901. In most rural Kansas counties, including presumptively Kearny, bail at first appearance is set by a district magistrate judge under K.S.A. 20-302b. Kearny County's judicial district number and selection method were not established from sources reviewed in this pass; the county's 'District Court' page is used by the site to list the County Attorney rather than judges. Which method this county's judicial district uses was not established for this record.
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-17
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
Notes on the record
- Kearny County's own website (kearnycountykansas.com) was reachable and its Sheriff page was reviewed, but it does not name the jail specifically, publish a roster, capacity, budget, PREA results, inspection results, contracts, bond guidance, or a fee schedule — it instead covers the sheriff's biography, community programs (OffenderWatch, VINE, D.A.R.E.), and a general Kansas Open Records Act brochure. None of the ten checks could be satisfied on the county's own domain.
- State inspection: repealed. K.S.A. 75-5228, Kansas's 1973 adult jail inspection statute, was repealed effective April 11, 1996 (companion K.S.A. 75-5227 repealed effective July 1, 1996); nothing replaced it, and the Kansas Department of Corrections runs no county-jail inspection program.
- County Commissioners page exists on the county's own site; individual member names were not extracted in this research pass.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Kearny County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-17 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered