The Detention Center
Not scored. The county's own website was not reachable in the session that produced this record, so its disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the county.
- Operated byChippewa County Sheriff's Office
- Address629 N 11th Street, Montevideo, MN 56265
- Approved capacity17 beds (per 07/17/2025 DOC inspection report) — a very small facility
- Jail administrator named in DOC reportJ.T. Schacherer
- Historical noteThe Minnesota state layer (river_states.json, key MN), citing a 2019 Star Tribune report, states that Becker, Chippewa and Martin county jails were named as having 'serious ongoing deficiencies' identified by the DOC in a ten-year inspection review. Whether that specific 2019-era characterization still applies as of the 2025 inspection summarized above was not re-verified here.
- What was triedchippewacountymn.gov, page /190/Sheriff and the site's home page — every attempt failed with a robots.txt fetch error (ConnectTimeout). The county's own site could not be opened in this session.
Source: MN DOC — Chippewa County Jail Final Inspection Report, 07/17/2025 · checked 2026-09-18
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds17 (approved capacity per DOC inspection report)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Derek Olson
- Runs the jailYes — the elected sheriff, per Minn. Stat. 387.11 and 641.14
- TermElected, 4-year term (Minn. Stat. 382.01) — statewide rule, not independently confirmed for Chippewa County
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: MN DOC — Chippewa County Jail Final Inspection Report, 07/17/2025 · checked 2026-09-18
The Judges
Minnesota district judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms, but most first reach the bench by gubernatorial appointment to a mid-term vacancy. Bail at first appearance is set by the court under Minn. R. Crim. P. 6.02.
Minnesota District Court (judicial district covering Chippewa County)
- Not found — Chippewa County's own site was inaccessible and no court roster for this county was opened within the search budget
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-18
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
- Chippewa County's own web presence (chippewacountymn.gov) could not be opened in this session: repeated fetch attempts on its Sheriff page and home page returned a robots.txt fetch error (ConnectTimeout). Per instructions, this county's transparency checks are left as an empty object rather than scored 'no' — nobody was able to look, so no claim of non-disclosure is made.
- All facts here instead come from the Minnesota DOC's published inspection report, the already-researched Minnesota state layer, and Wikipedia (used only for the county seat and commissioner names, not for any transparency check). None of these is county publishing and none can satisfy the ten checks, including 'inspections'.
- Wikipedia lists a five-member Board of Commissioners (Matt Gilbertson, Candice Jaenisch, David Nordaune, Bill Pauling, David Lieser), but this was not cross-checked against the county's own site, which could not be opened in this session, so it is reported here with that caveat rather than as independently confirmed.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Chippewa 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 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered