The Detention Center
Saginaw County Jail
- Operated bySaginaw County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address311 S. Harrison Street, Saginaw, MI 48602
- BedsHouses 511 inmates on a daily basis
- Inmate funds/bondCommissary and bond payments accepted via an onsite kiosk in the Sheriff's Office lobby, 24/7; 'Fees apply' to kiosk transactions
- Mobile appsDedicated Saginaw County Sheriff MI apps exist for Android and iOS
Source: Saginaw County website · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
6/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓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
- ✓How to post bond
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds511 (daily inmate count cited on the county's own site; not explicitly labeled a rated 'design capacity')
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff William L. Federspiel
- Runs the jailSaginaw County Sheriff's Office operates the Jail Division
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, MCL 51.70; took office January 1, 2009, and was re-elected in 2012, 2016, and 2020
- 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: Saginaw 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.
Saginaw 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 boardMark Piotrowski (D1), Jack Tany (D2, Chair), Rich Spitzer (D3), Sheldon Matthews (D4), Tracey Slodowski (D5), Denny Harris (D6), John Kaczynski (D7), Gerald Little (D8, Vice-Chair), Christopher Boyd (D9), Lisa Coney (D10), Michael Webster (D11) →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- FY2026 Budget Book (adopted September 16, 2025) itemizes Sheriff Department appropriations in detail: Sheriff's Office $867,835; Marine Law Enforcement $7,700; Jail Division $12,439,062; Corrections Reimbursement Program $76,261 (Sheriff total $13,390,858), plus Inmate Services Fund $1,410,171, Corrections Special Projects $706,073, and Juvenile Detention/Child Care $7,683,120.
- That same budget document authorizes the Sheriff Department 'to enter into law enforcement contracts' and to 'rent beds at the Saginaw County Jail' to outside agencies for revenue — the basis for marking the contracts check yes.
- Jail page states bond and commissary payments are made via an onsite lobby kiosk available 24/7, with 'Fees apply' noted for kiosk transactions, and separately references third-party services inmatesales.com and expressaccount.com.
- No inmate roster/lookup tool, PREA policy statement, inspection records, or deaths-in-custody information were found on the county's own domain; Helpful Resources page links out to the Michigan Sheriffs' Association, MSP, and MDOC/OTIS but not an in-house roster or PREA page.
- Sheriff's own biography page states he is 'beginning his fourth term' as of his 2020 re-election; his current 2026 term was not independently re-confirmed via a more recently dated page, but no successor or vacancy was found and the county's own site lists him as the sitting Sheriff.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Saginaw 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