The Detention Center
Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facilities (NORCOR) - adult jail
- Operated byNorthern Oregon Regional Corrections, an intergovernmental corrections agency owned jointly by Gilliam, Hood River, Sherman and Wasco counties
- Who runs itNot found - Sherman County publishes no name for the jail's administrator — NORCOR is run by its own management under the Northern Oregon Corrections Board, the four-county board of Gilliam, Hood River, Sherman and Wasco, appointed by the The Northern Oregon Corrections Board, on which Sherman County is represented by County Judge Joe Dabulskis. The administrator is not appointed by, and does not report to, the Sherman County Sheriff
- Jail address201 Webber Road, The Dalles, OR 97058 - adult corrections (541) 298-1576, as Sherman County publishes it on its own Community Corrections page. NORCOR's juvenile detention operation is at the same address
- What NORCOR is'Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facilities, otherwise known as NORCOR, is a Regional Adult Corrections and Juvenile Detention complex that serves four counties: Gilliam, Hood River, Sherman, and Wasco counties' - Sherman County's own FAQ
- A first of its kind'It is reportedly the first jail in the U.S. to merge the jail systems of four counties and adults and juveniles into one facility' - the same county FAQ
- Throughput'It books around 2,800 inmates per year, including an average of 14 Sherman County inmates per month. The average length of stay is 13 days' - the county's own FAQ
- Who else it holds'In separate agreements, NORCOR also serves Benton County, the U.S. Marshals and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement [ICE]' - the county's own FAQ. Sherman County publishes the fact of the ICE and Marshals agreements on its own website
- Sherman's seat on the boardCounty Judge Joe Dabulskis sits on the NORCOR board; NORCOR appears on the county's published County Court Board or Committee Assignments
- Community CorrectionsAdult probation and parole for Sherman is run jointly with Wasco County from 421 East 7th Street, Annex B, The Dalles, funded by the Oregon Department of Corrections and offender fees. Kimberly Hulke is the named Parole and Probation Officer and Summer Bathke coordinates community service work
- What was triedThe county's Sheriff's Office, Sheriff's Office Personnel, County Court, County Budget, Justice Court and Community Corrections pages were read, and the site search was run for NORCOR. No bed count, no daily population, no bail guidance, no phone or commissary rate and no inspection or PREA result is published by Sherman County
Source: Sherman County - What is NORCOR? · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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 on Sherman County's own site. The county publishes what NORCOR is and what it does, but no construction date
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found. Sherman County's adopted 2025-26 budget is published as a scanned PDF with no extractable text, so no NORCOR assessment figure could be read from it. The county's own FAQ points readers to NORCOR's bond measure but publishes no figure
- BedsNot found on the county's site. Sherman publishes throughput instead - about 2,800 bookings a year at NORCOR, an average of 14 Sherman inmates a month, and an average stay of 13 days
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff James Burgett
- Runs the jailNo - Sherman County has no jail of its own. Its prisoners go to NORCOR in The Dalles, a four-county facility Sherman part-owns. The Sheriff's Office's own duty list still includes 'incarceration of offenders'
- How the office is filledElected. 'The Sheriff is responsible for maintaining the peace within the county and is directly accountable to the people, running for election every four years' - the Sheriff's Office's own words
- In office since2 January 2025 - sworn in as the 17th Sheriff of Sherman County. He ran unopposed and was elected in November 2024
- CareerUS Army 1999 to 2003; reserve officer with John Day Police and part-time work at the Grant County Jail; sworn as a Grant County patrol deputy in October 2003; joined the Sherman County Sheriff's Office in 2013 under Sheriff Brad Lohrey; promoted to Undersheriff in 2018; commander of the regional tactical team NORTAC from 2020. DPSST 43731
- PredecessorBrad Lohrey, who retired in 2024 after a 31-year law enforcement career including 24 years as Sherman County Sheriff
- Size of the officeThree patrol deputies covering roughly 484 miles of county roads across 831 square miles, plus a detective; Sergeant Kyle Pfeifer (DPSST 57558) and Deputy Sol Jacobsen are named on the county's personnel page
- OfficeSherman County Sheriff's Office, Moro, OR 97039 - 541-565-3622; 541-565-5015 for concealed handgun licensing, civil action, discovery and report requests
- How this was verifiedNamed on the county's own Sheriff's Office page and its Sheriff's Office Personnel page, with his sworn-in date and DPSST number
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Sherman County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Oregon Circuit Court judges are elected in nonpartisan races to six-year terms and are state judicial officers, not county officials. A judge, not the sheriff, sets security amounts and release conditions; the sheriff's office only receives the money and releases the person. Justices of the Peace are the hybrid: a JP is both a state-authorised court judge and a county elected official, elected to a six-year term, with the county paying for the court. ORS 169.320 makes the sheriff the keeper of the county jail; the sheriff may appoint a keeper but remains responsible. Sherman County has no resident circuit judge: 'The Judges listed on this page share responsibility for all the Seventh District Circuit Courts including Gilliam, Hood River, Sherman, Wasco, and Wheeler counties', and all four have their primary offices in Wasco or Hood River. Bail for a Sherman County arrestee is therefore set by a judge based in another county while the person is held in a jail in a third. The county does run its own Justice Court at Moro, a limited jurisdiction court handling traffic, boating, fish and game and other civil violations plus small claims and evictions.
Circuit Court - 7th Judicial District (Gilliam, Hood River, Sherman, Wasco and Wheeler counties)
- John Wolf - Presiding Judge for the 7th Judicial District; primary office in Wasco County
- Marion Weatherford - primary office in Wasco County
- John A. Olson - primary office in Hood River County
- Karen Ostrye - primary office in Hood River County
Sherman County Justice Court - Moro
- Shandie Johnson, Justice of the Peace
Still needed
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23
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
- Sherman County is one of the Oregon counties with no jail, so this is recorded as a finding rather than a gap. Its prisoners go to NORCOR in The Dalles, an agency the county part-owns and whose board includes the sitting Sherman County Judge.
- named: recorded 'yes'. Sherman names NORCOR twice on its own website - a dedicated FAQ answering 'What is NORCOR?' and an 'About NORCOR' block on the Community Corrections page giving the address and phone numbers - and its published County Court board assignments list NORCOR among the county's seats.
- The county's FAQ is the most candid published statement in this group about who else NORCOR holds: it names Benton County, the US Marshals and Immigration and Customs Enforcement as parties to separate agreements. No rate is attached, so the contracts check is still 'no'.
- roster: recorded 'no'. The county's FAQ tells readers to 'check on adult or juvenile inmate status through NORCOR Website', but the roster itself is NORCOR's, not Sherman's.
- capacity: recorded 'no'. Sherman publishes booking volume, its own monthly average of 14 inmates and a 13-day average stay, but no bed count and no daily population.
- budget: recorded 'yes' - the Adopted 2025/26 Sherman County Budget is published as a PDF at the URL cited, alongside budget committee minutes. The file is a scan with no text layer, so nothing about the county's NORCOR cost could be read from it.
- deaths, prea, inspections, bond_info, fees: nothing published by Sherman County on any of these. The Sheriff's Office page does publish its Point and Pay convenience fees - 2.5 per cent with a $2 minimum on credit cards and $2 on electronic checks - but those are civil and records fees, not jail fees.
- state_inspection: Oregon has no state jail inspectorate. The Oregon State Sheriffs' Association runs a voluntary jail standards programme but publishes no per-jail finding, and Sherman County publishes none for NORCOR.
- Sherman County is governed by a County Court, not a Board of Commissioners: 'Sherman County Court is made up of two elected Commissioners and the Sherman County Court Judge', the Commissioners elected to four-year terms and the Judge to a six-year term. The members are County and Juvenile Court Judge Joe Dabulskis and Commissioners Joan Bird and Justin Miller. The County Judge chairs the Court, handles juvenile and probate matters and is the county's day-to-day administrator. The Court meets at 9 a.m. on the first and third Wednesdays of each month in the Commissioners' Meeting Room at the Sherman County Courthouse, takes public comment, and typically allows two minutes a speaker. The same three people sit as the Biggs Service District Board of Directors. Judge Dabulskis is Sherman's member of the NORCOR board, so the county's voice in the jail that holds its prisoners runs through the County Court.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Sherman 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.
The sheriff is on your ballot
The county clerk runs the election in Sherman County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from USA.gov and vote.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered