Compare Iowa sheriff department costs
Sheriff department cost and staffing across all 99 counties. Click a column header to sort. Hover a column header to see what it measures. Data as of 2026-09-26.
| County | Population | Budget | $/resident | Sworn / 100k res | Custody / 100k res | Beds / 100k res |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adair County | 7,479 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Adams County | 3,680 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Allamakee County | 14,046 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Appanoose County | 12,279 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Audubon County | 5,651 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Benton County | 25,652 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Black Hawk County | 131,041 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Boone County | 26,700 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Bremer County | 25,012 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Buchanan County | 20,631 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Buena Vista County | 20,687 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Butler County | 14,376 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Calhoun County | 9,893 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Carroll County | 20,728 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Cass County | 13,116 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Cedar County | 18,479 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Cerro Gordo County | 42,979 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Cherokee County | 11,601 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Chickasaw County | 11,957 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Clarke County | 9,737 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Clay County | 16,423 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Clayton County | 17,123 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Clinton County | 46,488 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Crawford County | 16,450 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Dallas County | 100,367 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Davis County | 9,093 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Decatur County | 7,684 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Delaware County | 17,523 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Des Moines County | 38,824 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Dickinson County | 17,692 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Dubuque County | 98,812 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Emmet County | 9,349 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Fayette County | 19,519 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Floyd County | 15,601 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Franklin County | 10,015 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Fremont County | 6,639 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Greene County | 8,801 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grundy County | 12,351 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Guthrie County | 10,619 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Hamilton County | 14,979 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Hancock County | 10,790 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Hardin County | 16,861 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Harrison County | 14,623 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Henry County | 20,436 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Howard County | 9,479 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Humboldt County | 9,606 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Ida County | 6,969 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Iowa County | 16,575 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Jackson County | 19,470 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Jasper County | 37,808 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Jefferson County | 15,785 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Johnson County | 153,360 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Jones County | 20,733 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Keokuk County | 10,026 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Kossuth County | 14,718 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Lee County | 33,442 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Linn County | 229,308 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Louisa County | 10,823 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Lucas County | 8,666 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Lyon County | 12,023 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Madison County | 16,609 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Mahaska County | 22,059 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Marion County | 33,487 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Marshall County | 40,049 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Mills County | 14,605 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Mitchell County | 10,537 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Monona County | 8,671 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Monroe County | 7,574 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Montgomery County | 10,285 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Muscatine County | 42,968 | — | — | — | — | — |
| O'Brien County | 14,138 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Osceola County | 6,149 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Page County | 15,225 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Palo Alto County | 8,938 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Plymouth County | 25,621 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Pocahontas County | 7,061 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Polk County | 493,378 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Pottawattamie County | 93,543 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Poweshiek County | 18,608 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Ringgold County | 4,690 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Sac County | 9,778 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Scott County | 174,315 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Shelby County | 11,737 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Sioux County | 35,815 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Story County | 98,573 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Tama County | 17,017 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Taylor County | 5,916 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Union County | 12,107 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Van Buren County | 7,207 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Wapello County | 35,292 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Warren County | 52,709 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Washington County | 22,534 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Wayne County | 6,484 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Webster County | 36,986 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Winnebago County | 10,704 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Winneshiek County | 20,050 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Woodbury County | 105,526 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Worth County | 7,417 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Wright County | 12,897 | — | — | — | — | — |
A note on data vintages and definitions. Population is the US Census Bureau's 2018-2022 American Community Survey 5-year estimate. Sheriff staffing is not currently loaded for Iowa, so the staffing columns show a dash throughout this table. They previously carried the US Census Bureau's Census of Governments Employment 2022 figure, which counts a county government's police protection and corrections employment by function code rather than by agency. That total includes the county probation department, the coroner and the crime lab, and it excludes the sheriff's own court services staff, so it does not describe a sheriff's office. Staffing will return here when a county-published figure is loaded. County jail data has not yet been loaded for Iowa; the state's county jails are inspected annually by the Iowa Department of Corrections' Chief Jail Inspector under Iowa Code § 356.43, with standards codified at Iowa Admin. Code 201, Title IV, ch. 50 (Jail Facilities), but no downloadable per-facility dataset from that program has been located. Sheriff department budget data has not yet been loaded for Iowa. Iowa Code ch. 69 lets a county's first deputy serve as sheriff between a mid-term vacancy and the appointment of a successor, so a name in the table can reflect a currently serving appointee rather than the last directly elected incumbent. Sheriff names were collected from the Iowa State Sheriffs' & Deputies' Association 2025 Sheriff Directory (dated April 4, 2025) and machine-verified against county sources in July 2026; all 99 counties are named.