During a work session between county department directors after Tuesday's Finney County Commission meeting, Finney County Sheriff Kevin Bascue said the sheriff’s office intends to implement body and car cameras in its patrol force by the end of the year.

Bascue said a vendor for the technology has been identified and the price for the equipment will be around $270,000. He added that taxpayer money will not fund the addition, which will instead be funded by “the commissions or revenues that we receive from our inmate phone and visitation system.”

“We’ve actually been discussing body cams for a couple of years, but it was never a serious discussion because we didn’t have a funding source in place to pay for it,” he said. “We feel like we have a funding mechanism in place that’s not tax dollars.”

Bascue took to Facebook to officially announce the development on Wednesday.

He said after the meeting that the sheriff’s office would be adding about 20 to 24 in-car camera devices and body cameras for patrol officers, with additional body cameras to replace those currently in use at the jail.

The announcement follows a move by the Garden City Commission in December to approve the Garden City Police Department’s purchase of 64 body cameras with accessories and 26 in-car camera systems for implementation in 2018 at a cost of $446,942. The GCPD already has been using car cameras, but the purchase by the sheriff’s office will mark its first use of the technology.

“The Finney County Sheriff’s Office is looking forward to having equipment in place that will provide for a documented account of interaction with citizens in our community,” Bascue wrote on Facebook.

After the work session, Bascue said policy has not yet been fleshed out to address potential for public release of recorded footage related to incidents involving use of force by law enforcement officers. He added that there isn’t yet a guideline for when law enforcement officers would have to turn their cameras on, either. A policy will be established before implementation, he said.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Kansas law requires that every police body camera recording be treated as a criminal investigation record and a public record. However, when it comes to the public side of things, there are a few restrictions. Only the subject of a recording, a parent or legal guardian of a person younger than 18 who is the subject of a recording, an attorney of either such person, or a legal heir or someone charged with execution of the subject’s will upon their death is eligible to view the footage as an open record.

Otherwise, release protocol in Kansas is largely up to law enforcement agencies, and the time it takes for state agencies to release information has varied by department regardless of circumstance.

Kansas state law does not require law enforcement agencies to use body cameras or car cameras. Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City Democrat, proposed a bill to mandate body camera implementation across the state more than two years ago. The bill flopped after legislators worried that officers would be threatened or harmed if their identities were publicized after an incident. Budgetary strains related to equipment and data storage were also a concern.

During Tuesday’s county work session, Finney County Attorney Susan Richmeier said her office may require an additional attorney whose duty would essentially be to view incoming camera videos from the sheriff’s office and the GCPD. She explained that in-car cameras include front- and rear-facing cameras that, when coupled with body cameras, total three separate videos to be reviewed for each relevant case.

Richmeier noted that other county attorney offices, such as Sedgwick County's, have had to take on as many as four new employees, including attorneys, to address the changes that come along with body camera implementation.

And when it comes to public access, Richmeier said she would prefer to keep footage private until the pertinent case is concluded.

“From my standpoint, I would prefer that none of it get released until we’ve made a determination as to the viability of the case,” she said. “And even then, not do it until the case is over because there’s just too much. The investigation is still going on, and we don’t want that investigation to be tainted by how the video may appear. What people in the public don’t understand is that that camera only covers so many feet, depending on which direction the officer is looking, and there may be stuff going on behind, beside — places that aren’t seen by the camera.”

Richmeier also echoed legislators’ concerns that storing the files could be cumbersome, especially when footage related to more serious incidents — such as those that involve a death —would have to be stored indefinitely.

“That’s another big issue,” Richmeier said, when asked how long footage would be stored. “In our opinion, it would be until the close of the case and/or any appeals could be filed. So if it was a murder case, that would be indefinite.”

She added that such cases could be appealed long after a conviction has been made, and the oldest appeal she has received stemmed from a case concluded in 1987.

“They may or may not be successful in those appeals,” she said, “but we have to keep it. If we don’t have it, then they may get out.”

As for recordings that depict less serious incidents, Bascue said those could be disposed of almost immediately. However, he added, officers could have footage retained on the basis that they “feel [it] could result in something along the lines of a complaint.”

For now, Bascue said he doesn’t see an immediate need for additional staffing in the sheriff’s office to deal with the additional workload of managing and storing camera footage.

Contact Mark Minton at mminton@gctelegram.com.