Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll start with the pledge of 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.

Good morning everyone and welcome to Shauny County Board of County Commissioners work session. On my immediate right is Commissioner Kevin Cook who represents District 2. On my left is Commissioner Aaron Mays who represents district three. I'm Bill Ripon. I represent District 1. On our far right, we have uh our county counselor, Rich Eckert, and Lisa Smith, our county clerk on the far left. Good morning, commissioners. So, first thing on the agenda, we have a presentation from Jennifer Sour. It's all yours.

Good morning. Um Jennifer Sauer, financial administrator. I'm just here this morning to give you a uh financial overview of where we are with our preliminary end of year 2025. This is before we do all of our endofear um approvals and adjustments and all the things that are we are required to do for our financial statements. So just want to let you know this isn't going to be exactly what you see on our financials later. The financials will be ready. Usually um August time frame is when we have those finished. So um it will be a bit different from this but this is where we are as of today through the end of the year. It gives us a pretty good indicator of where we're going to land. Um, first we'll talk about revenues. Uh, our 2024 revenues ended at uh 143 million and we were estimating 2025's uh revenues to be 145 million roughly. So an increase of about 1.5 million. Um, you'll see our actuals actually ended up a little above that. So our actuals right now are sitting at plus 2 million. So that's a good uh thing for us. We're only about a half a million above what we had budgeted for. So that's very dead on for our revenues for the year. Then we'll break into the uh specific categories. Our property tax revenue we estimated was going to come in at 1096, which would have been an increase of about $3 million over last year's. Uh it actually has only come in at 1087. So, it's down about a half a million from where we had budgeted. That doesn't mean that money won't come in. It just means it's coming into us late. Usually, that's timing. It's just we will see those revenues show up in 2026

as delinquent or uh prior year revenues in our whenever those do fall actually come in. Other tax revenues those this is where those delinquent taxes will show up in the future. So, um, our other tax revenues, we estimated it being at 1096. They have come, hang on just a second. Yeah, let me flip my page. Sorry. Our other revenues are uh, we estimated it being right under 16 million. Last year's other revenues were 16 million. We just budgeted a very small decrease. Our other revenues came in 1.2 2 million over our budget and 1 million over 2024. So again, some of that's going to be some delinquents that we were able to pull through whenever people came in and paid off some of our um some delinquent taxes. So it's a timing thing like from the prior year's property taxes coming in also other types of of taxes that we receive like motor vehicle and all the other tax categories. charges for services. We in 24 we brought in about $6.6 million in charges for services. Our 25 budget was set at 7 right under 7.4 million and we brought in right under 7.6 million. So we are about 200,000 over budget. Not big numbers um for us, but this is an increase of about a million dollars in charges for services over 2024. Other revenues our 2024 re other revenues were 14.5 in 25 those were 12.1 we estimated at 12. Um this would be the main drop

off here is exactly like we planned it to be. We knew we were going to get less interest in 2025 as we did in 24. Part of that is because our ARPA SLFRF balances that we were earning a interest at a fairly nice clip at a high interest rate and both of those things fell off in 25. But it's just as we expected as you see if you compare our budget with our revenues. We are about as dead on as you can get for other revenue. So um we're happy with where we estimated that and and it's right where we plan to end. Oops. So at the end of the year, this is exactly what we would expect to see. Our property taxes, as they are historically, are about 75% of our budget for revenues. And that is exactly where they've landed at the end of 25. Our other revenues are at 8%, charges for services are at 5%, and other taxes are at 12%. So, um, last quarter, if you remember when we saw this slide, last quarter, our property taxes were at 80%. So, that means our property taxes came in a little faster this year than we than they had in the prior year, but then they fell off right at the end of the year. Some of that might also get um we might see a a small change to that whenever we do our end of year acruals just um but I would expect it to stay right around 75 77% for us for the year. And then here is just a taking each of those categories and looking at the percent of the revenues um to our budget. And our property taxes as you see in the blue lines there are 25. Our property taxes we collected 99.2% 2% of what we budgeted, other taxes, 107,

charges for services, 102, and other revenues. Even though it's far under where it was in 24, we expected um them to come in right where they are. They're at 100.5%. Last year, we we had um not expected them to come near as high as they had. So, that's where we are for revenues. So before I start into expenses, do you guys want to have or do you have any questions that you wanted to ask about revenues? I don't really no.

Okay. Then here we are in our year-to-ate expenses for 2025. Um our 25 budget for expenses when it was 1454 or 1455. Our expenses year to date are showing 144. Um that is 99% of our budget. So we expended our money uh just about exactly as we had budgeted it. So um and again as you would we would expect it to be at 100% at the end of the year. That is pretty close to where we landed going into each of the subcategories. Our law enforcement expenditures are we budgeted or 744 and we spent 74. So those expenditures were just a little under our budget. The majority of that category that came in under budget was in the courts. So they had about a little over 300,000 of that fell in the courts this year. Our recreation uh came in $50,000 under budget. So that's about as close as it's going to get. We don't have very many things in our recreation budget. That is Parks and Wreck and the event center for the most part. They take up this budget. And um as you recall, at the end of the year, Parks and Wreck transferred their um end ofear money into their 3R fund to help um mitigate some of those expenses for deferred maintenance. They didn't have a large uh balance at the end of the budget or at the end of the year. I think it was between 100 and 150,000. So, they did a good job in um staying right at where they had expected to be for their budget.

public works. We had budgeted 14 million. They ended up spending 13,750. Um the majority of this excess fell in the appraisers's office this year and that was due to some um longtime employees retiring and the um difficulties that the appraiser's office had in filling those vacancies. So when you have those vacancies, it's going to cause some leftover funding at the end of the year. And that is exactly what happened for them. public health we budgeted 10,50,000 they expended 9,740,000 so it was a difference of uh roughly what four 350,000 um and that also fell in the health department for the same reasons um that the appraisers's office had some money left over the health department also had some excess funding not much that's But there was a little bit of excess funding in the health department administrative services. Um 19 million3 and we ended up expending 19 million1. Um predominantly that was due to some vacancies that we had. There are approximately 12 departments in the administrative services section. So there was no one department that had a lot of money left over. It was just um small amounts in each of those categories. Debt service as we would expect if we are not um incurring new debt we expect this to be debt on and it was. So uh we had

budgeted our our scheduled debt payments and we made all of our scheduled debt payments. So, this was that leaves us with our year-to- date expenditures. The just shows the categories of how those expenditures fall in our budget. Law enforcement is 51% of our budget. Recreation is 14, public works is 10, public health is 7, administrative services is 13, and debt service uh ended the year at 5% of our budget. So, um, nothing new and unusual there. It's exact exactly like we, uh, budgeted as we were 99% of our budgeted expenses. This shows and and it just bear in mind this this chart so that it didn't just look like a flat chart. This is very much exploded between 93% and 100%. So, um, all of our expenditure categories were were so close to to being on target. That's how we're showing this with the the biggest variance is the health department which was 4.1% under budget at the end of the year. And that is really all that I have for our uh revenues and expenses preliminary fourth quarter.

Mr. insurance. Yes, Mr. Cook. Um, just a couple of things. Have we ever looked at taking into account the money that comes in from the sales tax that goes to public works? If we were to look at an overall picture as to uh how public works would rank up against law enforcement. I mean, on your your chart, law enforcement shows it 51%. But if you were to take in that sales tax revenue, where does the public works department does that raise them? It would raise them. I'm trying to think off the top of my head what the I don't know what that amount is. It does raise them up. Obviously, it would not It would not raise them up to be equivalent to law enforcement.

I just know that when if the general public was to look at this chart and they saw that 10% went to public works, it's a bit deceiving because the number is actually higher than 10%. Absolutely. This is only our general fund. We do have um the half percent sales tax comes into us. Uh it goes um to Jato and then comes back to us in a in a in a percentage split with the city. So that um and I guess we would also take into account the the money comes in from the federal government for public works

um as again an overall picture of revenue. Yeah. Um and the public health we have money that comes in through the state grant to the health department. So again these numbers can be some deceiving a little deceiving. Yeah I would guess if I had to guess public works would move ahead of recreation

and whenever we added that it definitely would not fall um into law enforcement but but I can add a another slide to the deck that adds all all revenue sources. And just again I I think that this is good for us to look at our general overall u revenues and where our revenue comes from but there is additional revenue that comes into the health department through state grants and through the public works through sales tax and federal monies. Y so um another question as to expenditures when we're looking at debt service and I know that we stayed on track because we didn't take out any new debt. What are we looking at as far as debt that might be falling off

um in the next There we are. That was my one question. That was the one question I thought you might ask. So, there you go. That's all right.

So, that was not scripted, but I was what I figured you were going to ask. So, we don't have much falling off in 26. We have uh 150,000 in our payments falling off in 26. We do have a bit falling off in 27. So, um that would be an opportune time for us to look at getting together with Bob Perry, our um our bond council, and start discussions on what amount of debt we would be able to incur if you're looking at like keeping the debt service payment flat or close to where it is for the 26 budget. And that way there would be no increase to our uh budget necessarily, but we'd be able to take on some new debt to take care of some of these looming large projects that we have.

Okay.

So obviously if we if if that debt is rolling off in 27 Mhm. And if we were to issue the bonds in 26, when typically do the payments start?

So we can do it a couple ways. Um in the past we have incurred debt towards the end of the year and had those debt payments start in 27. We have also um incurred debt midway through the year and had interestonly expenses in the first year. So then you would see interestonly expenses which would be minimal in um September and then have our principal payments start up in 27. So obviously 27 is a whole year. So at what point does that million dollars of debt service come off? Is it January? Is it July?

No. So the schedule for our for our debt is that in March the payments are interest only. So it's half of our interest for the year gets paid in March and then in September we pay the other half of the interest plus the principal. Okay. So September then. All right.

Well, I guess I have a question for Commissioner Mays. How how' the bill turn out with this uh regarding our uh our property taxes? Do we know yet just exactly what that's going to do? Uh well yeah um so it passed by one vote. Um House Bill 2745 did and essentially what it does is it says our budgets have to be any any budget that we pass it's over 3% from the previous year's budget not accounting for growth debt service um IRBs and incentives and things rolling off. none of that's really included in it. So, it's 3% from the RNR basically. Um, anything over that is subject to a protest petition. Um, which would be 10% of the I believe it was 10% of the electors from the previous Secretary of State's race. Um, so I'm not really sure how they landed on that, but um, if that 10% is reached, then the budget would go back to revenue neutral, I believe. So, there were there was about five different versions of the same bill floating around out there. And so, um, they also didn't really let anyone see the language of the bill until after it was voted on because it was all

kind of done on the fly in conference committee. So, the subject still to the governor's potential veto. We're sure the governor could definitely still veto it. Um but if she doesn't, then it becomes law because it did pass both chambers. Okay. And even if she does veto it, they could still override the veto. Okay. Any other questions? What was our growth of our budget from 2024 to 2025? Or I guess even 25 to 26.

I don't have 26's budget in front of me. 24 to 25 is probably much worse. Uh inflation was really because we got hit with all those insurance premiums. Just a second. I have Okay. Hey, thanks Angela. And Andrea Forbes, Rockstar Deputy,

also anticipating these questions. So from 24 to 25 that was a 4% increase in our budget general fund budget. and 4.2 for 25 to 26.

All right. Well, if there's no further questions, I guess thank you and your staff for putting this together. And um you said uh you would have the the total final would be about midy year. Yeah, usually that comes in. Um, so our audit will we're doing all of our preparatory stuff and we're working with the auditors now on a lot of the preliminary work and then we will have the financial statements which will be our final usually that comes around August. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Yep.

Okay. Uh, next on our agenda is uh public comment. We have anyone here who'd like to speak? My name is Dr. Justin Spece. I am here today to demand accountability from this commission. On September 8th, 2025, I went to the Typical Police Station to report crimes committed against me. Instead of taking my report, officers arrested me inside the police station, claiming I was quote disobeying a lawful order for refusing to leave despite the fact I that I clearly had legitimate police business there. I have filed a lawsuit on that arrest and those charges are still pending. I was transported to the Shauny County Department of Corrections Adult Detention Center. I fully complied with all identifying requirements, including providing my name, address, date of birth, and a mug shot. I declined to answer non-identifying questions, including me medical questions, which I am not legally required to answer. As a result, I was placed in a cell for approximately 2 hours as a punitive and coercive measure. After I was removed from this cell, I continued to decline answering non-identifying questions. An angry and agitated jail nurse then said, "He can take his ass to suicide watch then, despite the fact that I had given no indication whatsoever of being suicidal." Officers then halted my release on an O bond, meaning I should have been released within hours, and instead escalated the situation. They informed me only a judge could now release me in the morning. I was handcuffed, transported to the medical wing, and forced into an isolation cell. There, Sergeant White along with officers Priest, Stanley, Elo, Bell, and an another unidentified sergeant used excessive force to strip me naked against my will. This was done as both punitive and coercive measures to punish me for not answering questions and to

compel me to speak when I did not have to speak. This was not for safety. I was explicitly told multiple times that it was being done because I refused to answer their questions. Multiple female staff members, including the female guard operating the camera, stood at the cell door and watched me being stripped naked. They stood there watching me while I was naked. Would you all tolerate this if male guard stood around watching a naked female inmate being forced stripped? The video of this is available on my YouTube channel. of the dreaded rabble rouser and I encourage you to watch it. During this force stripping, unnecessary pain compliance techniques were used on my arms, shoulders, hands, legs, neck, and neck and back. I was then left completely naked in the cell for approximately 16 hours in severe pain, unable to sit down due to the injuries inflicted during the use of force. I spent a total of 20 hours in custody on this misdemeanor charge. I was denied a phone call. My children and family had no idea where I was. I repeatedly requested medical care and was ignored. After six hours, an attempt was made to provide medical attention, but it was abandoned when I was physically unable to comply with an order to sit down due to my injuries. I received no medical treatment. Later, when I was finally able to sit down, a jail nurse made a degrading and sexually inappropriate remark to staff outside my cell, saying, "He's just sitting in there with his balls hanging out." I filed a lawsuit against the county, the jail, and the individuals involved. The county has since offered to settle for $1,000. $1,01 to be exact. What an absolute [ __ ] joke. Then on March 13th of this year, I was arrested again and taken to the same Shauny County Jail. This time, I declined to answer non-identifying questions and nothing happened. I was not threatened, not punished, and not placed on suicide watch. In fact, I was explicitly told that I did not have to answer those questions. I bonded out within 3 hours despite not answering nonident identifying questions again like on September 8th. That difference makes one thing clear. The prior use of force, the stripping, the interference with my bond, and the placement on suicide watchs were not lawful, not policy driven, and not justified. They were punitive, illegal, and a violation of my first, fourth, and fifth, and fifth uh 14th amendment rights. Because of this

unconstitutional and inhumane treatment, I am demanding that this commission require jail director Brian Cole to immediately fire Sergeant White, the involved nurses, officers Bell, Priest, Elo, Stanley, Ley, Bender, and the unidentified lieutenant, and Sergeant involved. I further demand that after uh Director Cole fires these staff members in this commission fire Director Cole or demand his resignation. Leadership that tolerates or permits this kind of sadistic, inhumane conduct and total disregard for American rights and freedom has no place overseeing a correctional facility. Anyone else wishing to speak? I was also arrested on March 13th and taken

Give us your name and that's my name is Michael.

I was also arrested and taken to the jail on March 13th from the Kansas Highway Patrol office. I was a press observer at the time who was uh arrested with Dr. Spees just because I was with him according to the deputies or the highway patrol. In any case, when I was taken to the jail, I knew about his previous experience with the suicide watch and this concerned me. I did not expect to be arrested just as somebody who was with him. I was the planned backup, right? So when I'm sitting in the jail in there, I'm asking the nurse, "If I refuse to answer your questions, am I going to be stripped naked and placed on suicide watch like Dr. Spees was?" It's recorded on this body cam. That nurse looked straight at me and said, "Yes, that if I didn't answer these questions, they wouldn't know anything about me and they would have to place me on suicide watch. I went back over to the Shauny County Jail about a week later because they had kept my ID. They had swore that they had returned all my property to me, but they had kept my ID. I tried to resolve this over the phone, but that was unable to be done. Everybody kept passing the buck. So, I ended up at the Shauny County Jail. And while there, I see both these nurses working at the jail as though nothing has happened, as though nothing has occurred. Nobody at the jail would identify those nurses. They all claim they work for a third party agency and nobody knows who they are. I don't buy that and I don't think any of you do either.

The fact that that nurse told me that if I didn't answer her questions that I would be stripped naked and put on suicide watch, that should appall you and it should motivate you today to make a couple calls and end that practice immediately. You can't stop what's already happening. During your earlier presentations, you talked about tax money. You talked about revenue and expenses and things like this. Your tax money pays attorneys. Your tax money pays your liability insurance. Your tax money will pay the judgments that exceed your insurance. I quite expect this one might. Your LEO expenses, $74 million. You might as well double that cuz I'm going to find more people who have been told they will be placed on suicide watch for not answering questions. I put out a call. I'm going to find more people. We're going to develop a class action against you guys for this practice because that cannot happen. Highway patrol stood there listening to this. I had a highway patrol deputy acknowledge my right to remain silent, but everybody's hands off has nothing to do with anything going on at the jail. They have complete deniability because it's not my job. That's the way all these officers who swore an oath to the Constitution behaved. Your debt services are going to increase. I don't know what else I can tell you, but some changes are going to happen. Whether you do them yourself or I force them, it's going to happen. Anyone else wishing to speak? Next item is ad uh administrative

communications or anybody our staff? Nope. Commissioner Mays? Nothing from me. Cook. All right. Uh, I don't believe we have a need to go into executive session. So, we're adjourned.