The Detention Center
Otsego County Jail
- Operated byOtsego County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address225 W Main, Gaylord, MI 49735
- Beds34-bed capacity (renovated to this capacity in the mid-1980s per the 2024 Annual Report)
- UndersheriffMatthew Muladore
- OvercrowdingCounty maintains a Citizen Jail Committee addressing longstanding jail overcrowding
- Jail AdministratorLt. Scott Musall
Source: Otsego County website · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
8/10Open- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✓Deaths in custody
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✓Independent inspection
- ✓Who else it holds, and for how much
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗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
- Beds34
Since then
- Renovated to a 34-bed capacity in the mid-1980s, per the 2024 Annual Report
The Sheriff
Sheriff Matthew Nowicki
- Runs the jailOtsego County Sheriff's Office operates the Corrections Division
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, MCL 51.70; serving since 2013
- 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: Otsego 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.
Otsego 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 boardTerra Deming (D1), Henry Mason (D2), Jonathan Turnbull (D3), Brett McVannel (D4, Chair), Jason Clement (D5), Christi Sortor (D6), Neil Drzewiecki (D7), Dana Wingo (D8, Vice Chair), Rob Weaver (D9) →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Otsego County's Corrections page (otsegocountymi.gov/268/Corrections) is unusually transparent: it links an Inmate Roster, a 2024 Jail Annual Report, historical Criminal Justice Master Plans (2008/2011/2013), and a 2017 Bail Bond Companies list.
- The 2024 Jail Annual Report states the jail 'has been overcrowded for the last dozen of years,' records zero deaths in its incident table for the reporting period, lists 'Quarterly Michigan Department of Corrections Inspection' among emergency-preparedness protocols, and names Bear River Health as the medical services provider.
- The report mentions Inmate Commissary/Securus Telephone Service but does not publish specific fee amounts, and no PREA-specific policy document was found on the county's own site.
- Financial Reports page lists adopted Budget and Appropriations Acts for 2022-2026; sheriff/jail-specific line-item detail within those documents was not independently itemized in the content reviewed.
- State inspection/oversight: Michigan Department of Corrections conducts inspections of the Otsego County Jail; the 2024 Jail Annual Report references a 'Quarterly Michigan Department of Corrections Inspection' as part of the facility's protocols (source: https://www.otsegocountymi.gov/DocumentCenter/View/3252).
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Otsego 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