The Detention Center
Kimball County Jail
- Operated byKimball County Sheriff's Office
- Bond postingDaily, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.; cash, bank transfer, or wire only
- VisitationMondays and Thursdays, 2:00–4:00 p.m., 20-minute limit, closed holidays; visitors must be 18+, present photo ID, and not be on probation/parole/diversion
- Property policyThe Sheriff's Office states it will take no personal property for inmates during incarceration
- What was triedhttps://www.kimballcountyne.gov/sheriff — no capacity, budget, fee, or PREA detail published there
Source: Kimball County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-25
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗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
- ✗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 David Hottell
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office page gives bond-posting and visitation procedures for the county's detention facility
- How the office is filledElected on a partisan ballot to a four-year term (Neb. Rev. Stat. 32-520)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Kimball County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
Nebraska judges are state judicial officers, not county officials, chosen by merit selection: the Governor appoints from a judicial nominating commission's list, then the judge faces a retention election. The county court judge sets bail at first appearance. Specific current judges for Kimball County's district were not located within the search budget for this group.
- 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
- Board of Commissioners, confirmed on the county's own site. Current members: Rich Flores (Chairman), Elyse Schlake Lukassen (Vice-Chairman), David R. Hottell (Member) — the county's own commissioners page lists a "David R. Hottell" as a board member, the same name (with middle initial) as the sheriff listed on the county's sheriff page; the county's own pages were not reconciled further on whether these are the same person. Not on the Nebraska Blue Book's 2008 list of 27 township-organization (Board of Supervisors) counties.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Kimball 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