Scotts Bluff County

The Detention Center

Scotts Bluff County Detention Center

• Operated byScotts Bluff County; Sheriff Mark Overman is listed as interim director, with Vonnie Cotant as Program Director
• Address2522 7th Street, Gering, NE
• Beds286 (186 original beds built 2007; 100 beds added in a 2018 renovation)
• Year built2007
• StaffingApproximately 75 certified corrections officers, per the county's own detention center page
• ScaleDescribed on the county's own site as the '5th largest county detention facility in Nebraska' and the largest west of Grand Island
• Housing other agenciesSite states the facility 'holds detainees for surrounding municipal agencies and various panhandle counties' and separately provides inmate transport for the U.S. Marshals Service out of Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota and North Dakota — no specific partner-county list or per-diem rate is published
• Contracted servicesAdvanced Correctional Health (medical), Trinity (food service), Keefe Commissary Network (commissary)

Source: Scotts Bluff County Detention Center · checked 2026-08-25

• ✓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
• ✗Independent inspection — not published
• ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
• ✓How to post bond
• ✓Phone, video and commissary rates

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Scotts Bluff County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-25. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

• Year built2007
• Original costNot found
• Paid for byNot found
• Beds286 (186 original + 100 added in 2018 renovation)

The Sheriff

Sheriff Mark L. Overman

• Runs the jailThe Sheriff's Office and the Scotts Bluff County Detention Center are separate divisions on the county's own site; the Sheriff is currently listed as the Detention Center's interim director
• How the office is filledElected countywide on a partisan ballot, four-year term (Neb. Rev. Stat. 32-520)
• Chief DeputyTroy Brown

Source: Scotts Bluff County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-25

The Judges

Nebraska district and county court judges are merit-selected: a judicial nominating commission sends the Governor at least two qualified nominees on a vacancy, the Governor appoints (or the Chief Justice does after 60 days), and the judge then faces a nonpartisan retention vote at the next general election more than three years out, and every six years thereafter (Neb. Const. Art. V §21). They are state judicial officers, not county officials.

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 →