The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is getting a lot busier.
The Sheriff’s Office says it will record an estimated 12,490 calls for service — including 911 calls and other interactions, requests, or incidents initiated by citizens, other agencies, or staff — this year. That’s down slightly from 2022, but up 38.6% since 2013.
The number of those calls investigated by the department appears to have grown even more sharply. The Sheriff’s Office projects it will take on 1104 cases by year-end, a 64% increase from its load in 2020.
In addition, so-called admin calls — those received on the department’s non-emergency line for anything from utility problems to VIN inspections — are on the rise. The Sheriff’s Office estimates it will get a bit over 32,000 such calls in 2023, up 17% from 29,000 two years ago. (The data is inexact because the department has installed new technology since 2018 that has changed the way calls are coded.)
Doug Dodge, the department’s public information officer, says the increases generally reflect the area’s growth. Jefferson County’s estimated population was 12,826 as of July 1, 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a 5.8% increase since the 2020 census.
Dodge added that call volume also is driven by population increases in surrounding communities such as Butte, Bozeman, and Helena, which send more people traveling through Jefferson County.
According to data compiled by Dodge, calls for service involving animals, deaths, domestic disputes, and neighborly disputes have gone up since 2014.
Meanwhile, assaults, burglaries, DUIs, larcenies and thefts, traffic offenses, suspicious activity and traffic stops have all declined in that time. Calls related to drugs or drug paraphernalia increased from 2014 to 2020 but have dropped off since; Dodge projects they will total 19 this year.
Dodge said it isn’t clear what’s driving the sharply higher caseload over the last few years, but noted that it’s a concern for the department. “This is what takes the most out of law enforcement’s time,” he said. “It can be very time consuming.”
Sheriff Tom Grimsrud and Undersheriff James Everett say they have seen this increase in investigations firsthand, and have started taking calls themselves.“It’s been a lot to come into office with this kind of increase and being short staffed,” Grimsrud said.
The caseload increase has changed the way Sheriff’s deputies work, Grimsrud said. When he started with the department in 1999, he said, deputies had more time to patrol. Grimsrud recently has instructed deputies to spend two hours at the beginning of their shifts patrolling, but said that leaves officers with a backlog of cases. Everett said that deputies often must pick calls left over from the previous shift.
As the workload rises, the Sheriff’s Office faces a staffing challenge. Grimsrud said it is difficult to recruit and keep people in a job that sometimes requires them to work from midnight to 8 a.m. and then go home to their families who are just starting their day.
The county currently has one deputy position open. Another deputy was hired last winter but is still training at the police academy, Everett said. It takes about a year of training before a deputy can start working full-time. Dispatchers likewise require months of training.
Grimsrud says he’s trying to address the staffing bind by improving job flexibility and the work environment. “We’re very open to scheduling and we’re very progressive. We try to be open to ideas or solutions,” Grimsrud said.The office has implemented 12-hour shifts for deputies so they can take every other weekend off to be with their families, a change suggested by one of the deputies, Grimrud said.
“If you’re going to get into this kind of work, it can’t be about the money,” Everett said.
