The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byNot found
- What was triedhayescounty.ne.gov homepage, sheriff page and board-members page were opened; none names a distinct jail facility or gives a jail address separate from the sheriff's office
- State reporting dataHayes County does not appear among the reporting agencies in the Nebraska Crime Commission's jail record submission table (agencytable.pdf) or in the facility list of the Jail Data Query tool (jaildata.cgi) — both state sources, not the county's own site, so this is supporting context, not proof
- Where prisoners go if no jail is operatedNot established from a source opened this session
Source: What was tried above; no county-published jail page found · 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 Thomas Dow
- Runs the jailPer Neb. Rev. Stat. 47-105 and 23-1703 (no county board of corrections identified for Hayes County); the sheriff's own page states the sheriff has "charge and custody of the jail and its prisoners"
- OfficeP.O. Box 86, 505 Troth Street, Hayes Center, NE 69032
- Contact(308) 286-3364
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Hayes County Sheriff · 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 Hayes County was found on a source opened this session.
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 →
Notes on the record
- No dedicated jail page, budget document, or transparency content of any kind was found on hayescounty.ne.gov during this session; the site's structure (homepage, board members, sheriff page) contains no links to a jail, corrections, or budget page.
- The sheriff page's statement that the sheriff has "charge and custody of the jail and its prisoners" is boilerplate statutory language (Neb. Rev. Stat. 47-105/23-1703) that appears verbatim across many small Nebraska county sheriff pages built on the same site template; it does not by itself confirm an actively operating jail facility in Hayes County.
- Neb. Rev. Stat. 83-4,131 requires Nebraska Crime Commission personnel to inspect a covered 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 no Hayes County jail page was found to check for county-side publication.
- Hayes County's own site labels its governing body the "Board of Commissioners." Three members are listed by district: Kevin Fronoff (District 1), Barry Richards (District 2), Wayne Christner (District 3). The board meets the 2nd Tuesday of the month in the courthouse board room. Hayes County is not on the 2008 Blue Book's 27-county supervisor list, and the county's own site confirms commissioner form.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Hayes 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