The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byClay County Sheriff's Office
- Jail phone402-762-1154 (listed separately from the Sheriff's main line)
- Jailer staff namedJamie Schmidt (Secretary/Civil Process), Brian Hajny, Tanaya Stones, Paul Kimminau, Chandler Whetstine
- Fees publishedSheriff's-office civil fees only (gun permits $5, VIN inspections $10, fingerprints $5, civil process $35, insurance reports $25, execution fees $250) — none are jail phone/video/commissary rates
- Facility name, capacity, roster, bond info, PREA, inspections, deaths, contractsNot published on the pages reviewed
Source: Clay County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-25
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
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jeff Franklin
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office page states the sheriff "maintains charge and custody of the jail and its prisoners"
- Office104 E Edgar St, Clay Center, NE 68933 (PO Box 186)
- Contact402-762-3528; jeff.franklin@claycountyne.gov
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Clay County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
Nebraska uses merit selection with retention elections for every trial court judge, including the county court judge who sets bail at first appearance. The Governor appoints from a list submitted by a judicial nominating commission (Neb. Const. Art. V, sec. 21); an appointed judge later faces an uncontested retention vote. District Court (general jurisdiction) and County Court (bail at first appearance, misdemeanors, probate, most juvenile matters) are both state courts, not county offices. No sitting judge's name for this county was found on a source opened this session, so judges are recorded as Not found rather than guessed.
District Court
- Not found
County 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 2026-08-25
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 →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Clay County's own site (claycounty.ne.gov) confirms the sheriff's name (Jeff Franklin) and a separate jail phone line and named jailer staff, but does not name the jail facility itself, publish a roster, capacity, bond guidance, jail fee schedule, inspection result, death record, or inter-agency contract.
- The Budgets landing page (claycounty.ne.gov/budgets/) lists the Sheriff's Office among county departments but shows no itemized sheriff/jail budget figures in the content fetched.
- Neb. Rev. Stat. 83-4,131 requires Nebraska Crime Commission personnel to inspect the facility and deliver a written report within 30 days to the facility's governing body (the county board), not to the public. No state agency publishes these reports, and the county's own site does not publish one either, so this is recorded as not published rather than as a violation.
- Clay County's own site labels its governing body simply the "County Board" (neither "Commissioners" nor "Supervisors" is used on the board page itself), with seven district members: Scott Bitterman (D1), Jesse Mohnike (D2), Glen Becker (D3), Eric Samuelson (D4), L. Wayne Johnson (D5), James Pavelka (D6), Richard Shaw (D7). Meetings are the last 3 Tuesdays of the month. Seven districts matches the seven-member Board-of-Supervisors structure the 2008 Nebraska Blue Book lists Clay County under, but the county's own site does not use either term explicitly, so this is recorded as consistent with, not independently confirming, the Blue Book's "Supervisors" label.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Clay 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 2026-08-25 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered