The Detention Center
Bayfield County Jail
- Operated byBayfield County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address615 N 2nd Avenue E, P.O. Box 115, Washburn, WI 54891
- BedsNot found
- Boarding2025 Sheriff's Office budget narrative notes the jail has been boarding inmates from neighboring counties, with 2023-2024 boarding numbers up
- Jail AdministratorLuke Kleczka — Jail Administrator listed as contact for the Bayfield County Jail
Source: Bayfield County, WI - Bayfield County Jail · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓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
- ✗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 Tony Williams
- Runs the jailBayfield County Sheriff's Office operates the Bayfield County Jail
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, Wis. Stat. ch. 59; listed as 'Tony Williams, Sheriff' in the county's own official directory
- Statutory basisSheriff's Office administrative offices located at P.O. Box 115, Washburn, WI 54891
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Bayfield County, WI - Official County Directory 2026-2027 · checked 2026-09-19
The Judges
Wisconsin circuit court judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms under Wis. Const. art. VII — state judicial officers, not county officials.
Bayfield County Circuit 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 2026-09-19
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 boardBayfield County Board of Supervisors, Chair Steve Sandstrom (District 1) →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- County publishes a detailed, department-level 'County Budget' page with a dedicated Sheriff's Office budget narrative and a separate '245 Jail Assessment Fund' financial worksheet on its DocumentCenter.
- 2025 Sheriff budget narrative puts the proposed Sheriff's Office budget at $5,229,881 (0.5% increase over the prior calculated budget) with a proposed levy of $4,891,328.
- Jail page's quick links point to AllPaid for bond posting and JailATM for inmate account deposits, but no fee schedule is published on the page itself.
- No inmate roster hosted on the county's own domain was found; only third-party aggregator sites (bayfieldcountyjail.org, bayfieldjailroster.org, wisconsininmates.org, etc.) turned up, which do not count as the county publishing.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Bayfield 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 2026-09-19 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered