And what happens to Idaho if the office collapses?
This started with one question in Horseshoe Bend
Last Tuesday at the “Meet the Representatives” town hall in Horseshoe Bend, I asked a question based on direct work with Idaho sheriffs. I told the room I have interviewed sheriffs across the state, and they are all saying some version of the same thing: There is a disconnect between the Idaho Legislature and the needs of the sheriffs on the ground. My question was simple: Why?
Representative Christy Zito’s answer should wake up every Idahoan. She stated that in her experience, there is an effort across the country to delete the office of the sheriff, with the goal of replacing it with a more centralized policing model. That is not casual, theoretical, or harmless, it is a siren and raises the question we now have to ask directly. Is Idaho quietly defunding the sheriff? Not by voting to abolish the office but by starving it until it fails and then replacing it. That is how power consolidates without a public fight.
Why this matters:
The sheriff is not “just another law enforcement leader.” The sheriff is locally elected and constitutionally anchored accountable to citizens, not a centralized chain of command. They are the last meaningful enforcement barrier between people and single point control. In rural Idaho, the sheriff is often not “one service among many.” the backbone of public safety. So, if the office collapses, do not pretend the vacuum stays empty as it never does. Power always fills the vacuum.
COVID showed America the model
If you want to understand what centralized enforcement looks like, go back to COVID. Across the country, city executives and governors used emergency powers to close businesses, restrict movement, and pressure compliance. In many places, sheriffs were the only shield between executive command and widespread enforcement abuse. That matters because it proves the principle: When enforcement becomes centralized, it becomes a tool of the leader, a tool of the moment and a tool of the administrative machine. Local constitutional law enforcement is the opposite of that as the sheriff is a structural check.
What Idaho sheriffs are saying
This is where the article stops being opinion and becomes evidence. I did not arrive here through social media outrage but by interviewing Idaho sheriffs and the Idaho Sheriffs Association. The message is consistent as sheriffs are screaming for assistance and their leadership is signaling stonewall conditions. Here are the facts, from the mouths of Idaho’s law enforcement leadership.
Exhibit A: Jail funding is breaking Idaho
Jeff Lavey, Executive Director of the Idaho Sheriffs Association, explained a reality nobody wants to say out loud: Every county must have inmate holding capacity but only 35 counties have jails, meaning others contract out. One county is now reducing jail operations due to facility limitations, forcing transfers elsewhere. What the taxpayers need to understand is Counties cannot fund modern facilities as the current model is: pay cash (which is impossible) or float a bond (but a supermajority is required and often fails). He explained that even when citizens vote “yes,” jails still fail because the threshold is too high. That means this is not a sheriff issue it is a structural Idaho government issue and when structures fail long enough, people stop believing. That is how the ground gets prepared for replacement.
Exhibit B: State inmates are bankrupting counties
Lavey explained this one is devastating. Once a person is sentenced, they become a state inmate but due to lack of prison space, state inmates are sitting in county jails. The state pays $55 per day for 7 days and $75 per day after but the real average cost to counties is about $140 per day. So I asked the obvious question who pays the difference? Leavy answered: the residents of that county which is the definition of quiet defunding where the state pushes cost down and the county eats it while the sheriff takes the blame.
Exhibit C: 911 failures are real
Lavey described Idaho’s 911 reality: The system still heavily depends on aging analog infrastructure where lines are unsupported and failure rates are increasing. He stated there have been 140 documented failures over recent years. Failure means: no one answers, calls hold indefinitely or location cannot be found. This is not “technology talk” this is life safety. If Idaho cannot fund NextGen 911, then what exactly are we doing with all this growth? We are building homes, subdivisions, resorts, and tourism infrastructure but we are not building the safety backbone to match it and this is unsustainable.
Exhibit D: Counties pay to retrieve state absconders
Levey explained another outrageous cost transfer: State supervised offenders abscond out of Idaho. The state issues the warrant but counties pay to retrieve them. That retrieval can cost thousands sometimes as much as $4,000 to bring one person back. Again, this is the same pattern. A state level problem becomes county level cost and the sheriff holds the bag which is how you break a system quietly.
Exhibit E: Valley County proves the growth pressure
Valley County Sheriff Kevin Copperi laid it out clean: Valley County is 3,700 square miles mass recreation along with mass tourism. It was weekends that used to be the crush but now it is all day, every day, all year. Then he said the staffing reality: housing costs stop recruitment as people accept positions then realize they cannot afford to live there. That means sheriff offices can lose capacity without doing anything wrong. The county becomes less safe without a scandal and when capacity fails without scandal, the public gets confused and confusion is fertile ground for political manipulation.
Now connect it to property tax
Here is where credibility collapses. There are serious political organizations pushing for the elimination of property tax but where is the sheriff in their math because in rural counties, property tax is not paying for luxury. Instead It is paying for sheriff operations, jails, EMS coordination, evacuation systems, dispatch survival and basic county safety capacity
So, when politicians shout “end property tax” without plainly addressing sheriffs and emergency services, it is not serious reform. It is populism, virtue signaling, a slogan and slogans do not fund 911, slogans do not transport inmates slogans do not evacuate a fire slogans do not staff a jail.
The future if the sheriff collapses
If Idaho loses the sheriff through quiet defunding, the future is not “freedom” the future is centralized policing a state force under one command structure and that changes everything because the sheriff is the local check. The sheriff is an independent constitutional position. The sheriff is the enforcement firewall against single point political control. You do not need to guess what happens next as history already wrote the script. When local offices weaken, centralized power expands.
The question Idaho must answer
So let’s ask it plainly: Is Idaho quietly defunding the sheriff and are we being pushed toward central control without realizing it because once that shift happens, it does not easily reverse, you do not “vote it back” you live under it.
My warning to Idaho
I am not writing this to be dramatic. I am writing this because I have interviewed Idaho sheriffs and the leadership of Idaho sheriffs and they are not whispering. They are warning, they are signaling strain, they are signaling capacity failure they are signaling stonewall and they are signaling system risk.
If Idaho wants to remain Idaho, we cannot pretend we can starve the sheriff’s office and still keep rural liberty alive. You cannot have strong counties, rural freedom, local control, constitutional law enforcement while quietly defunding the only office built to enforce it.
Image courtesy of Idaho County Sheriff’s Office FB Page
