Neosho County Commission - Special Meeting

a special meeting. Okay. All right. I'll call to order the board of county commissioners of Neoso, Kansas. This is Monday, February the 2nd, 2026, and this is a special uh meeting that we are having just to have a couple of department heads. So, we'll start with the pledge of allegiance and the invocation led by Commissioner Westo. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Lord, for this day. Please let us make good judgments today and getting the county attorney and uh please help us all and all the fighting going on in the cities and everything and please let us come together and reunite and uh we sure don't need another civil war. Lord, please pray pray for us all in God's name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

All right. All right. I move to recess into executive session to discuss personal matters of non-elective personnel regarding road and bridge and the appraisers for 10 minutes to include commission council uh road and bridge director and assistant director and HR and if we need the uh director of the appraisers's office which will come back at 9:10. I'll second the motion. All those in favor? I I

Okay. So, you've got the Yes, I got it. We're back in session. No action taken. No action taken. I'll make a motion to approve the new hires of a field of treasure. I one for the appraisers office and a road and bridge greater operator number one for the road and bridge department within with an effective date of February 2nd 2026. I'll second it. All those in favor? I I motion carried.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Get that done. Yes.

Okay. Next on our agenda is Cheryl Russell, who is our interim county attorney. January 23rd of 2026 at 4:30 p.m. Tiana Maroy elected Neo Neoso County Attorney submitted her resignation as Neoso County Attorney. Per KSA19-1715B, 31st Judicial District Chief, Judge Daniel Kitz appointed Cheryl Busel to serve as temporary county attorney until a person is appointed to fill the vacancy by vote by the Neoso County Republican District Convention and subsequently appointed by the governor. So that um appointment will be right now it's attentively scheduled for next Thursday which is February the 12th.

So Cheryl Bessel is a duly qualified and licensed member of the Kansas board and previously served as Neoso County Attorney from 1992 to 1996. She's fulfilled the role of Neoso County Attorney for the last 10 days including court hearings and staff management among other things. Today we would like to discuss with her some questions that the board has for her moving forward and some ideas that she has. So I will open the floor for you first, I guess, unless the other commissioners want to say anything.

Well, I did provide a written presentation for you including u a pictorial uh tour of the office as you can see. Um, and and I think the staff went into the actual county attorney's office back there and and cleaned it, tried to clean it up. That's what it looks like cleaned up. And uh and so there there are just some there's just several kind of areas of action, let's say it that way, that need attention right away. And this may cause somewhat of a whiplash since just recently the person standing in front of you wanted more money as a salary and I want less money as a salary. Um but I I believe that uh for right now that [clears throat] is sufficient. Uh, and it sounds like there may have been some personnel um, included in the roster. Now, there are four staff people there that are full-time staff members. And I and I am led to believe that maybe there was only the budget for for three. So, we'll have to deal with that. But I calculated and I did talk with the county counselor about this that to have that um extra amount in the in the salary part of this might come in very useful to to have that.

So I might give you this. This is the actual budget. Oh, okay. There it it's kind of a mess, but that'll kind of give you a preliminary. The front there are the uh three different categories. Okay, that that's the actual adopted budget uh that was filed with the state. And then the next two pages uh have the breakdown of what those accounts Oh, I see. Okay.

Or for there were some changes uh like the personnel actually you'd have to get with HR, but what we passed was 25115 is what the adopted is doesn't quite match the figures that I have here. This is what she proposed compared to what we actually anyway. We can clear that up. But as you can see, there's only three staff members. Um, and then the other page is kind of the breakdown of commodities and contractual just so you have that information with might need some more clarity.

Yeah. Well, I'm going to be I'm [clears throat] going to be meeting with the HR here pretty soon anyway. So, I did have some questions about that. So, that that uh that's useful information to have. So, back to the salary. So, when we hired the previous county attorney, we hired her at 772,000 a year. That's what we had paid the previous uh county attorney. And then at the end of 24, I believe that we bumped that up to 92,000. Mhm. So that's what she was currently getting. Mh. Um, so when you were talking about taking a different salary,

well, what I recommend in number one here is that we return to the salary that she was receiving when she first came in office, which would which is a $20,000 reduction. and and part of the reason is the there's one more there's one more employee that is budget for but also uh then the the the if you skip down to the all what I say in the long-term goal. So uh there's really more work in this office than one attorney can accomplish and do that competently. I agree with that

and that is why some some of this has not been done competently. For example, one of the items is that uh she left office with um only an 8week window until there is a jury trial scheduled March the 17th. Um that is what's called off-grid felonies. So Mr. He probably knows what that is, but it means that the potential sentence is 25 years without the possibility of parole. And the person's year of birth is 1956. So, he's been unwilling to enter into anything. He just keeps saying he's not going to go to prison, which but here's the thing, that kind of trial takes a lot of resources. So, I immediately got on the phone, tried to get the attorney general's office. I called the Montgomery County attorney. I called another person. I thought might be interested. So, you know, I don't know what's going to happen with that, but it will soak up a lot of my time and energy to prepare for that and conduct that trial. It's a child sex offense trial and those are just not easy.

Uh the big offices, uh the big prosecutor offices in Kansas have specialty people have specialized assistants that do do those. [clears throat] Now, there is a fly in the ointment which I just learned at the end of last week, which is the woman who is the professional forensic interviewer in Witchah who did the interview of this particular child victim is pregnant and I received a doctor's note that she cannot travel after March 10th or something like that away from the city of Witchah. So, I considered a lot of different options and I finally now have had a chance to review in more depth. I thought maybe I could use the preliminary hearing transcript and get that or I could go take a criminal deposition, which hardly nobody thinks to do, but the the type of testimony she needs to give is that's probably not going to work. So I have prepared a motion to continue the matter and and that will have a big impact on the victims. There are two other pending child sex offense cases against this same individual Neoso County citizen. And so, you know, I don't know, but that's that was uh something that I'm I'm trying to get that set set up so that we can work that we're the best for those victims in the community. And in the meantime, he was released on his own reconnaissance and a agreement with uh the previous county attorney. And so he is at large in the community with a monitor on his ankle, which also concerns me. Now, um so the other thing is, [clears throat] you know, we do have to make a future

plan for this office because, you know, I I'm in June. going to be 75 years old.

Let's be honest with you. Okay, I'm just going to tell you. I feel like I have still enough gas in the tank to do what we need to do. However, there is an expiration date stamped back here [laughter] somewhere. And so, I'm really committed that we have, you know, not only a plan, but people in place so that it way more smoothly goes, you know, on to the next people. And what I would like to do is hire someone that is maybe at this point still in law school so that when they graduate, of course, they'll be studying for the bar over the summer, but I get to train them and I want someone who wants to settle in southeast Kansas and in particular in Neoso County. So, I have some ideas about how to how to lure them. Never had a job, you know, at one of those resorts where they give you a free weekend and then you just have to sit there and listen for three hours. They try to sell you a time share. Never. I've set through those so I know how they go. So, I have some ideas, but uh we're just I tal when I talked to the Montgomery County attorney, she said that they are they are advertising for an assistant on Indeed. Uh they have postings in both the Kansas law schools, Tulsa, Oklahoma, um state, uh Oklahoma University, uh Drake, uh Kraton, they're UMKC, and they're advertising it at $100,000 and they're getting zero interest, which is why, you know, we have to invite them and, you know, try to get a time share, you know, going or something. There are some ideas I have that we could maybe offer some things that other people are not offering. So, I'm going to be at work on that, but it

will be a painful upward adjustment of of money uh so that we are paying a competitive salary. And I attached just some of the postings from the Kansas County and District Attorney's um website. They have a career center where uh members can post their open positions and you can see that 8588,000 a year is kind of the low end of this is what you would receive right out of law school. So, and then also we're we're not just competing with other county and district attorneys offices, we're competing with the private sector. So that's that's a a a further distant goal. So now if I could just switch since we're talking about money to another painful subject which is the diversion funds. I have uh been in touch with imprise. I uh have not yet talked to community national bank. There are uh to my knowledge two accounts that were opened by Miss Mroy. uh the Enterprise Bank should be getting me all the statements from that account since it opened so that I can see, you know, what has gone in and what has come out. And the same with Community National Bank. Now, uh, [clears throat] Thursday, um, I was talking to Kelly, uh, one of the staff in the office about where are all these records? Where's the financial records and that they're mostly notable by their absence because I haven't found much. However, she said, "Oh, well, but we do have these three big manila envelopes that probably somebody needs to deal with." I said, "What big man vanilla envelopes?" And

she brought them out of her desk. They had previously been in the desk of Kathy Ross and they're stuffed with there's one stack of of cash about like this. It's $2,000 and some dollars and then there's another with hundreds. So, so so so I I do have a plan and I know that Mr. Bell is doing the an audit of the other um accounts that were operated by Mr. Then. Uh, I'm intending that as soon as possible, I'm I've already drafted a like a a memorandum form for the staff to we're just going to go one at a time and go through there and see where that money is supposed to go. There will be a memorandum that says where this much got put in the diversion fund. that there's still money that's supposed to go to the clerk of the court for costs and fees and um and then there's charitable donations in there. Uh Miss Maroy when she opened her diversion accounts uh started uh the practice of having people go across the hall and pay their uh court costs and fees directly to the clerk of the court. A good first step. However, they've taken in those those charitable donations and put them in with the diversion application fees. So that that money is still comingled. So I've stopped that practice right now. Like immediately I said stop, stop, stop. We're we're touching people's other people's money way too much. So the practice now will be that the the

requirement for a charitable donation is good. However, from now on the um proposed diveree is to bring a check or money order that is made payable to a charity and I I'm just going to make it simple. I'm going to say okay the first half of the year those check and money order need to be made payable to CASA and once a week we're going to send that money whatever it is. It might be $20. It might be 80 80 or whatever it is. We're going to send on July 15th. It will start being Hope Unlimited and then next year we'll look to see if there should be a different charity that gets a chance or we'll somehow we'll work that out. But I [clears throat] said you must stop putting any money in those accounts other than what is due the county attorney's office because we're we're you know for a long time we've been messing with other people's money in a way that if the ethical people understood that in Topeka I don't know if I had done it with my trust account they'd be running lights and siren down here to take my license away I'm pretty sure. But we're good. We we we will get a handle on that. I promise. And as soon as I can get these um statements, I can let you know this is what the balance is. One of them is called drug by fund and the other one is just it just says Neoso County Attorney DBA Neoso County Attorney. So that I assume was just the diversion application fees. Not sure. I'll keep I'll keep working on sorting sorting that out.

So as far as probably to make it clean, you if you know by next uh Thursday, you're still of the appointed. Yeah. Um, I think we need to maybe get with the clerk or the treasurer. We need to, you know, open a separate account so we can keep all of these accounts separate. Uh, so that you have a clean start or whoever takes office. I don't know. Does anyone else have No, I I Yeah, you need clean break. I thought we were getting that way before this last time, but didn't seem like it's

didn't happen. Yeah, it I I was hoping that it would be all clean and there would only there won't be any co-mingling of money anymore because we learned from that. But it's still I am I am still un dissatisfied with how that is being done. So that probably is a good idea to just start with new accounts so that we can know this is what um so it if um if I'm the one appointed by to be appointed by the governor then that's what I'll be doing. So we'll just start over again. All right.

Unless you have anything any other advice for me about what to do. I I'd clean up the cash part of it. That Yeah. Needs to be some type of money order or check or something in that fashion just to keep everybody. Mhm. Mhm. It takes a lot to make me speechless. But when I saw those three big envelopes, I just couldn't talk for a minute. So, it was pretty uh startling. So, I have a few other questions. Does anyone else want to Oh,

ask anything. Okay. Um, currently I was wondering what other cases you have and is there any conflict now that you're doing county attorney with the cases that you have or how are those being handled?

Well, uh, I told Judge Kits that uh, I had stay I've stayed away from criminal cases pretty much altogether for a year and a half or more. And uh, I was probably the only one who could just step in and go to work. He asked when I could start. But I said tomorrow, here's the thing. I do have two cases um that I have civil matters and those people have uh a criminal case and I've already talked to the Allen County attorney who said that he would take over all the prosecution and decisions and they're actually I think in pretty good I don't think it'll be a lot for him to deal with but he has said that he would take that over. So then I now you know I was the county attorney here, you know, in the '9s and you would be surprised at how many people are still recycling through that I go, "Huh, I remember that person." or

or just from being around here, you know, career uh

you you know we're you know I was in Wok County as an assistant district attorney and I you know I was I was only there for nine years but I started to recycle some of the kids that were in truency then were the parents of kids that were placed in foster care. So I it you know uh when that comes up I'm pretty sure that Brandon would still you know go ahead and t and take that on so that I don't I don't want to be in any position where I do have a conflict of interest and um you know that could that there could be others that that pop up. I don't know. We'll have to see.

Do you plan on taking other cases in the meantime? Just have to ask this. No, no, no. Sounds like you're going to be busy, but yeah, we've got that in the past, too. No, no. I called my brother to give him the news and he said, "When are you going to actually succeed at retiring? [laughter] You keep failing."

Um, but no, I'm there's a few things that I'm I have like a couple of divorces and Brett knows about the some of them. I'm a guardian adidam on a case. I don't know if that that's kind of gum on your shoe. just kind of hardly ever, you know, gets off of there. But there's a few civil things that I'll be either winding up or having occasionally to appear and but that's my plan is that those things uh need to be, you know, wound up with final orders and then on but look, it's like maybe 10 cases or a dozen cases. I was trying really hard to retire.

I told my brother that, but I just didn't quite make it. Okay, one other question is I know in December that we denied an invoice for the county attorney and it was around $20,000 for Carpel, which is going live on having everything computerized.

Uh that invoice was not brought back to us. And it's a real big concern to me as to is that invoice paid? We paid then in January we paid the $8,000 for the annual fee for this year. So, and maybe Kelly knows this, someone in the office knows how was that paid if it was paid. I don't want to you in the future of the office not paying that invoice, but I can't imagine they allowed them to go live without that invoice being paid. She could have brought it to us at the beginning of December. It was due at the end of December. We I mean anyway, so that's a concern that I would like you to look into. I would like to have the assurance that

somehow she paid that um come back and get that out of this budget. We didn't have it in last year's budget, but early in the year now we could pay it. It'll just be kind of hard rest of the year. But I think I just want to make sure I know that they the staff and and Tiana did put a lot of effort into that and so I think going forward we still need carp health. So I just would like you to look into that and kind of let us know. Yeah, I will get the answer for that. I would say that um I I found a checkbook where three checks had been written but they were all to law enforcement agencies. I think she told us about that way back in the fall and so

she was trying to but that's all I could, you know, until I get the statements and I can figure it out. Um, but I will get that answer for you. That thing is still up and running. So I would think they would cut if they didn't have their $20,000 they it's real easy from headquarters wherever that is. The mothership just cuts you off. Yeah. So So I just want to make sure that probably got paid but I will get verification.

Be interesting to know where that came from. One other um a couple of things. Um the office hours, we've realized that the office hours have been cut back that as she posts those. I was wondering how you feel about that or the staff. Are we going to have the same office hours posted or

Well, here's what I think about that. It's right now from 8 to 4. And uh those people are a lot like a lot of people I've worked with in the business. When I was the court trustee, it was a constant struggle. I couldn't get people to take a lunch hour, which is a problem under federal law. You can't just have people to Well, back on the farm, we worked we ate a sandwich on the tracking, you know, but you can't do that. they need more. So, it's likely that um I'm I'm going to talk to them, but I think that what we need to do is at least have a take it at least a half an hour longer and then tell them you must take if I have to lock you out of here, go somewhere or or I'll make a table out here and you can sit out here, but you c you cannot work during this half hour. And I prefer that it was would be that a couple of them do 12 to 12:30, a couple do the 12:30 to 1:00

so that uh somebody's there to answer the phone because people do call and it would be great if we could because a lot of people are calling on their own lunch hour. Sure. Mhm. Cuz they work. Well, and if you're in court and then people come directly down to your office, it may be close to the lunch hour. Yeah. And see, they're closing right now for a whole hour. They're closing the office in the middle of the day like the clerk of the court closes the office. But there's also an hour lunch. Well, well, yeah. So, that is that and partly I'm going to wait a little bit till the 12th and see okay what happens after that. But then uh that some something needs to give with that.

Okay. One more thing. Yes. Keep going. That's fine. might be something I haven't thought of and I think maybe we just need to have a clarity with the staff that that office has not been following our holiday policy and they usually close whenever district court does but being a Neoso County employee they really should follow our 11 day 4hour so like this last time was what did we just have we just had a holiday Martin Luther King day did they work I know.

Yeah. See, and they're getting paid and no one else in the county is getting paid that holiday. So, to me, that's a problem. I know district court is closed. They follow a different schedule than us, but they are Neoso County employees and they should follow our holiday schedule. Now, coming up is President's Day and we have that off. So, um, just I think that needs to be made clear with the staff that we're going to go back to following that because I think both previous county attorneys thought they could make their own schedule, but that just cost the county and you guys have plenty of work to do. So, that's my opinion.

Well, on that leading though, I think there's also been past of not documenting time off. Mhm. Well, there's also they also when you go work for 20 years and you never take a sick day holiday or or vacation day. I think that that's an issue. Yeah. Well, they also here's here's the other thing I want you to know about that staff over there. I have I just only got to observe them for a week. Um has it I guess it has been a week anyway. [laughter]

for a week. Um, and they uh they they they work pretty hard and there's um a lot that doesn't get accomplished even with that number, even with an increase of from three to four people. They have laptops and they sometimes work at home. On the snow day, two of them had laptops and they were working because they were on the phone to me and you know, and I was in the office. So, I don't know. There you go. They're but pretty much that you're right. There is so much to do that, you know, they have to but they're going to have to adjust themselves to that work will be there the next day and the next day. That's that's very clear from the pictures [laughter] if you saw the pictures. Oh, by the way, I think the first picture in the stack where it says municipal court, she was a municipal prosecutor. for Miss Maroy for a while. And those are all reports that that were in connection with that. So, I am going over to the municipal court this afternoon. I'm going to be boxing those up. And I I I can't even uh they'll have to look through that. I don't know what she did or didn't do with those.

I don't think she's doing that anymore. I don't know how long she was doing that, but it's a you can see by the picture, it's a stack about like this tall. So I'm I'll take those back because those are not our property and they need to go. Was that in Yosha County? It was in Shinoot Shoot City Court. She was over there

doing municipal court as well as other things. Well, yeah, I'm not going to I'm not planning to do any of all of that. I I'll be lucky just to keep my head above water to do this. But any attorney would be to to try to catch things up. meantime maintaining the activities that need to be maintained every day

to to keep the current things done properly and competently and how they're meant to be done. So yeah, anything else? I just want to say I really appreciate you taking this on. It's very short notice and I know that you offered your services when Tiana did and [clears throat] u so I'm glad you're stepping on board and we'll make the and we're here for you. I think just keeping communication open

uh is the the key to this as far as as us being able to help you. But I think we all are on the same path that we want the best for this and the future is only going to be better if we deal with the past and get things cleared up. So, um yeah, communication definitely. I know we cleaned up. Yeah, we we have our meetings on Tuesday and now we're starting at 1:00 and I know you usually have court Tuesday afternoon, but we can make arrangements uh just like this is a special meeting. But I think we've got to make it a priority. So you just need to reach out to us.

I mean, so my position is that this office, a prosecutor's office really is meant to be for for and by the community. And so, uh, you may see me organizing a a volunteer staff to do, uh, you have a lot of records that have never been digitized. And apparently there's a room around here somewhere that has even the old records from when I was here 28, however many years ago. And there are rules and statutes that allow for destruction of those. And I think people kind of get in the idea that it doesn't cost anything to store records which is inaccurate because we are you know providing uh HVAC and lights and uh all that for those records. And you you also have pictures of what used to be the assistant office. It's the one with the whole bank on this side of the wall and the whole bank on this side of the wall of file cabinets. And trust me, they are all full of paper and that room should be used for something else. And then it it goes on. There's

Well, we know about old office equipment. So, just to mention, this coming Saturday, we are having an auction here in the basement at the courthouse at 9:00. uh basically offering old office supplies. Some of that stuff is vintage, let's [laughter] say. Well, um it's very interesting. But that also cost us, you know, so we would like to at least um get that cleared out. So, we'll work on that. Work on old records.

Yeah. Dave told me to put uh go through that and put green painters tape on stuff that and it'll probably be all of it. and then they're just going to move the anything that's in the county attorney

room back there. Uh we do we do we just need to get rid of that stuff and um and and we are now you know doing a lot of digital work. So there's hardly anything in files now. traffic is not we're not putting that on there because at some point you reach a point of diminishing returns when you spend so much staff time entering that stuff on there when you're only going to have like a five minute hearing or anyway I can see why they didn't do that. So there are some a few files, but for the most part, we're stopping the practice of having big thick, which of course

and that's why this $20,000 to get this all That's right. And we spent that money. It's not going to be worth it if we don't That's right. digitize everything. That's right. All right. So, anything else? I'll move to set the county attorney salary at $72,000 with an effective date of January the 26th, 2026. Second. All in favor? I I motion carried. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity and thanks for making a special meeting time today so we could do that. I am taking my um type 1 diabetic daughter who's outlived the expectations of the 1983 St. Francis diabetic people. But she does uh she did have an amputation. So this is her first time to travel. And we're going to Savannah for five days. Five big days. and she's excited. So things that are scheduled, things were already that was already scheduled weeks ago. I just could not bring myself to call them and say, "Oh, we're not going." Appreciate. Yeah, you're coordinating what's going to happen. But I think, you know, in the meantime, we have Yeah, that meeting we'll get it figured out.

You got the dockets covered and everything. So, I think I think it'll I think it'll be fine. And I'll have my cell phone. I told police and the sheriff, I guess, if something It's really disastrous happens. Call me in Savannah and I'll try to get back as soon as I can. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I'm going to make a motion to close. Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. [laughter] I move to journ special meeting. Second. All those in favor? I. Motion carried two zero. We'll be back here next Tuesday at 1:00.