The Detention Center
Waushara County Jail
- Operated byWaushara County Sheriff's Department
- Jail address430 East Division, Wautoma, WI 54982
- Bond posting24/7 Stellar Teller kiosk in the sheriff's office lobby ($3.00 cash convenience fee, 10% credit/debit card convenience fee); also available via Jailatm.com
- Fees$35 booking fee (per Waushara County Ordinance #520); $15/day pay-for-stay for non-working sentenced inmates; $25/day (working, GPS) or $30/day (GPS transfer inmates from other counties), charged weekly; $10 nurse visit, $20 doctor visit plus prescription charges
Source: Waushara County, WI · 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 — 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
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 Walter Zuehlke
- Runs the jailThe Waushara County Sheriff's Department operates the county jail in Wautoma
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, Wis. Stat. ch. 59
- Statutory basisWis. Stat. ch. 59 (county sheriff has custody of the county jail)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Waushara County, WI · 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.
Waushara 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 boardNot found
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- The Sheriff's Office site has dedicated pages for bond posting, canteen, Huber, jail fees, mailing, property, telephone, and visiting information, but no dedicated inmate roster, PREA, capacity, budget, inspection, contract, or death-record pages were found.
- State inspection/oversight: Wisconsin DOC Division of Community Corrections inspects county jails under Wis. Admin. Code DOC 350; applicability to Waushara County jail not independently confirmed on the sheriff's site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Waushara 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