ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Before a split ruling to approve the Fiscal Year 2026 budget and a hike of 13.384 in Seward County’s mill levy, citizens were allowed to come to the mic to voice concerns over the increase and other matters, but prior to that, Administrator April Warden addressed some issues, namely how the county arrived at Monday’s public hearing.
With the state’s Revenue Neutral Rate, a rate expressed in mill levies by which a government entity would collect the same amount of revenue as the previous year, entities are required to have a public hearing between Aug. 20 and Sept. 20 if they intend to exceed the RNR for the upcoming fiscal year.
Normally, the county commission hosts one budget session in July, hearing from all department heads on their needs for the next year, and a budget hearing typically takes place in August or September.
This year’s budget, though, has been heavily scrutinized due to an ongoing Board of Tax Appeals case with Conestoga Energy and a possible payback of $6 million due to the protest of a county appraisal of one of the company’s facilities.
For that reason, the commission hosted eight work sessions this year, along with two town hall meetings, to discuss the case. Though the case itself involves the years 2018 through 2024, Warden said district court in Sedgwick County is currently only looking at 2018 through 2020.
“We have hosted eight budget work sessions this year,” she said. “We have also had two town hall meetings to discuss this. We had a taxpayer who did protest their taxes. It has held at the Board of Tax Appeals. They did come to a conclusion. The Board of Tax Appeals did rule on the proposed taxes. The taxpayer was not happy with the valuation amount the Board of Tax Appeals came back with or the evidence they had in the hearing, so they did appeal the case to district court. The district courts here felt it was a conflict of interest, so they have recused themselves from it, and it was sent out to another district court in the state of Kansas.”
There has no ruling as yet on the appeal, and Warden said the county could be facing a substantial payback depending on the final ruling.
“When we first published the budget to say we were going to exceed the Revenue Neutral Rate, we did base that off worst case scenario,” she said. “That information has to be certified to the county clerk’s office in July, and the commission did so.”
Warden said BOTA will not have any further evidentiary hearings on future tax years until district court rules on the first three years.
“With that being said and having our eight budget work sessions and going through the town halls, the budget proposal we’re bringing forward this evening is based off having to pay back what the BOTA ruling was for the first three years, not worst case scenario,” she said.
Some of the factors that went into the mill levy increase likewise had to do with inflation, and Warden said estimated inflation rates posted in a recent Leader & Times graphic only represented one year of inflation at its current value.
“That did not take into consideration the past few years, which was in some years more than 9 percent,” she said. “We have not adjusted our budget. For the past 20 years, our valuation has stayed flat for the most part, as have our mill levy and the amount we are collecting for taxes. I don’t know too many people who can take that on with the inflationary amount and a payback that we’re looking at for the tax protest.”
Warden said the county’s cash carryover and reserves have been depleted to the point they have little, if anything, left for paying back debts such as is with the Conestoga case.
“Some would say this is on the backs of former commissioners who didn’t want to make those tough choices,” she said. “However, that’s the tough choice that’s before the commission tonight. We have endured tax lids. We have endured Revenue Neutral Rate, and I understand there’s an issue.”
Like many, Warden said the county has a broken system that needs to be fixed.
“To stay within those decisions that are put upon local government to try to remain revenue neutral, to try to endure the tax lid, all commissions were trying to do that,” she said. “In order to do that, we did not put aside money for payback.”
Warden said much of the blame for the Conestoga protest has gone to Appraiser Angela Eichman for how she appraised the property.
“An appraiser cannot just go out there and appraise property any way they want to,” Warden said. “There are guidelines that are set by the state as to how we appraise property. She simply was doing her job. We’ve had expert appraisers, which is a county expense. When people ask for expert appraisals, that’s a cost to the county.”
Warden said the expert appraisals too came in higher than what Conestoga officials should be due to exemptions they felt they were due.
Warden said county leaders were asked to look into using no-fund warrants to help with debt concerns, and she said through talks with the county’s bond counsel, Gilmore & Bell out of Wichita, it was discovered those would create more of a liability for the county later.
“It only actually provides us with one year of payback, and you have to set the tax levy in one year to be able to pay that back,” she said. “You also have to go through a public hearing. You also have to apply to BOTA, and you have to show that was an unforeseen circumstance in which you are applying for that.”
Warden said attorneys with Gilmore & Bell were not sure if the current situation with Conestoga could be seen as an unforeseen circumstances by BOTA.
“We know there is a possibility of this happening, and we need to budget for it,” she said.
Warden said Gilmore & Bell attorneys too talked about the use of judgment bonds.
“It has to qualify for the Kansas State Torque Claims Act,” she said. “He really did not feel it would, but he would have to look into that more to decide if a judgment bond could be made available to us.”
Warden also said employee benefits have been lowered by $1 million each in FY 2025 and FY 2026.
“What that means is you are exhausting any reserves you have set aside,” she said. “That is a big risk in doing that. We are partially self-funded, and you’re responsible for those health claims. Based off prior years’ expenditures, we felt that was an area we could look at.”
Warden likewise said the county has eliminated 18 positions in the county, including six detention officers, one position in the county clerk’s office, three in the appraiser’s office, two in Road and Bridge and one each in GIS, Emergency Management, Cimarron Basin Community Corrections and Rural Fire.
“We have cut the hours at the health department and our maintenance department,” she said. “In capital improvement, we have made significant cuts. We also moved computers out to a seven-year replacement period when the favored is a five-year replacement period.”
Warden added except for the sheriff’s department, the county has not purchased any new vehicles in quite some time.
“We take the sheriff’s department’s used vehicles, and we use them for all other departments and our employees,” she said. “We are now asking the sheriff’s office to utilize their vehicles for more mileage before they’re able to pass those down.”
To further cut costs, Warden said some equipment is being shared between the landfill, Road and Bridge, the Event Center and the maintenance department.
“The new Road and Bridge director has reopened the gravel pits to save money on material costs,” she said. “We’ve outsourced grinder operations instead of buying new equipment. We’ve eliminated desktop printers and most fax machines except for those fax machines we still have to have for encrypted purposes.”
In May 2024, the county implemented an IMA prescription plan, which Warden said has saved $154,111 in 2025 and $270,000 overall.
Later in the meeting, commissioners would vote 4-1, with Vice Chairman Steven Helm being the lone vote against, to also approve an increase of 3.565 mills in the county’s Rural Fire District. This makes that district’s levy 7.96 mills and provides a spending authority of $1,594,860 and ad valorem tax of $1,416,720.
Warden said between the county’s health insurance and its property and casualty insurance, a million-dollar increase was seen for FY 2026.
“That doesn’t mention the fuel increases we’ve had, utility expenses, or equipment,” she said. “Our trash trucks have gone from $80,000 to $130,000.”
Warden said the mill levy increase does not account for increases in the cost of food and other expenses.
“We’re having to look at what the county utilizes,” she said. “Your households are faced with groceries and bigger options. They are also faced with fuel expenses and utility expenses. They are also faced with property and casualty insurance and health insurance, but when you have a $40 million budget and your inflationary factors hit with that, we’re not looking at a small amount of money.”
Warden said inflation has to be taken into account when considering a mill levy, and this year’s also needs to address the drop of four mills commissioners approved three years ago.
“We have not kept up with inflation with the county budget,” she said. “We have gone from a point of having reserves of $7 million in 2024 to $2.4 million.”
Another cost-saving measure, Warden said, is the countywide installation of Fuel Man cards to save money on gas, and she talked about some other ideas to trim fat out of the county’s budget.
“We have started to bulk order different supplies the county can use such as paper,” she said. “We looked at a number of things in those eight work sessions we’ve had, and I’ve highlighted some of the big areas where we did make cuts.”
Warden said she feels the county’s town hall meetings and Monday’s public hearing have had both good turnout and input, and she also believes the county is doing everything possible to keep constituents informed.
“People want to talk about transparency, and I feel we have been as transparent as possible during this time,” she said.
Before she handed the podium over to constituents, Warden reminded those in the audience and watching online that county employees are also taxpayers.
“We all feel the hurt of the decisions we’re having to make,” she said.
