The Detention Center
Ogemaw County Correctional Facility
- Operated byOgemaw County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address912 W. Houghton Ave., West Branch, MI 48661
- UndersheriffPaul Frechette
- Jail AdministratorLt. Thomas Howard
Source: Ogemaw County website · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Brian D. Gilbert
- Runs the jailOgemaw County Sheriff's Office operates the Corrections Department
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, MCL 51.70
- Statutory basisMCL 51.75 gives the sheriff custody of the county jail
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Ogemaw County website · checked 2026-09-19
The Judges
Michigan circuit and district court judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms under Mich. Const. art. VI — state judicial officers, not county officials.
Ogemaw County Circuit Court
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-19
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 boardJenny David (D1), Roger Mayhew (D2), Charles Wiltse (D3), Mark Surbrook (D4), Craig Scott (D5) →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- County publishes General Fund and Special Fund budgets (FY2024-FY2025) and monthly budget reports plus annual audits (FY2016-FY2024) at ocmi.us/general-fund-budget/, which include Public Safety category figures covering the sheriff/corrections department, though line-item detail specific to corrections was not independently itemized on the page text retrieved.
- Corrections page provides only address, phone, and links to General Information and Fingerprinting PDFs; no roster, capacity, PREA, inspection, contract, bond, or fee content found on the office's own domain.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Ogemaw 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 2026-09-19 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered