ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Prior to hearing from Wichita attorney Forrest Rhodes regarding what could be done to fix the adopted budget for Fiscal Year 2026, which contained an increase of more than 13 mills over the Revenue Neutral Rate, Seward County commissioners got feedback from constituents at Monday’s meeting.
Liberal resident Rick Madden, who also spoke at the Sept. 15 public hearing, said he is confused by budget information he has seen since then.
“One says come get it from the horse’s mouth, and the other one’s showing the horse’s mouth isn’t being truthful about it,” he said.
Madden asked how much of the 13 mills would be dedicated to paybacks to DCP National Helium and Conestoga Energy.
“If there is surplus in that 13 mills, I’d like to know what the mill surplus was and what the intended use of it is,” he said. “It seems it’s fallen under the cover of the DCP National Helium and Conestoga settlement.”
At an earlier meeting, commissioners had stated $1 million had been set aside for the paybacks, with another $500,000 added to that in the FY 2026 budget, which is less than 2 mills of the proposed increase, and just as others had previously asked, Madden questioned why that money was not being put in a restricted fund.
“It’s like you’re shuffling money,” he said. “You’re saying you’re going to put it there and pay it off, but you’re not making the honest effort to keep it there. The taxpayers need to know what you’re planning on doing with that money if you’re not going to put it in a restricted account where you can’t touch it to fund other budget issues.”
Like many in the county, Madden said he feels the county needs a chief financial officer.
“It looks like the bookkeeping is something done from a high school accounting class with the way funds are being put in and moved around,” he said. “If they’re going to budget for money, it should go for that issue, not for other projects to cover what somebody else messed up. They should budget for the oversight and the undersight. When you get a budget from a department, do you actually go over and question what the budget’s being used for?”
Madden said a prime example of this can be found at the Seward County Health Department.
“They’re overbudgeting so they can get bonuses,” he said. “It looks to me, the health department have bonuses for four years straight on people. That’s wrong.”
Overall, Madden said department heads need to be held accountable for the budget requests they make.
“You’re wanting a 13-mill increase, but you’re giving raises out,” he said. “That’s not responsible. You’re taxing the taxpayers of Liberal to give someone a raise or financially strapped somewhere else. That just doesn’t make sense.”
Madden also questioned the paying of additional education for some of SCHD’s staff.
“Are you guys actually paying for your department head over there and paying for the schooling for nurses to get their bachelor’s degree?” he said. “They don’t need that. All you need is an RN over there. You don’t need a bachelor of nursing, and if you are paying for it, why aren’t you making them sign a contract that they’re going stay here for X amount of years?”
Another issue for many, including Madden, is the county’s paid time off package.
“I’ve never seen anybody get as much vacation time as the county does,” he said. “You’re giving that much vacation time. If you actually sit back and look at it for the four to five people you hire, you’ve got to hire one more to cover for all the vacation time. That’s totally unacceptable.”
County Consultant Neal Coffey said unfortunately without a ruling from Sedgwick County District Court on the Conestoga case, it is not known how much the county will have to pay back.
“We do know from visiting with people in the state, it’s probably not going to be the worst case experience, which lends to the reason why you dropped down to the 13 mill level,” he said.
Coffey said based on the development of information since the Sept. 15 public hearing, he asked commissioners to consider amending the budget and letting County Clerk Stacia Long know budgetary requirements have been reduced.
“You can do that based on the information we’ve received from the state, and I think it’s an appropriate thing to do now based on the knowledge we have, the delay in the ruling, etc.,” he said. “If you would reconsider that budget and pull it back to a 4-mill increase, I think your constituents across the county would be supportive of that.”
Coffey said the county’s assessed value has brought in some additional dollars, and this could lessen the burden on taxpayers even more.
“Maybe you don’t even need the four mills if you go back and amend your budget,” he said.
Liberal resident Carolyn Huddleston also spoke at the Sept. 15 hearing, and she provided some of what she has found since then, including two sets of bonuses given to the health department in 2025, including $58,709 from the Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG).
“The second set of bonuses came from the Maternal and Child Health grant,” she said.
Huddleston said these bonuses involved four quarterly payments in amounts obtained from Administrator April Warden for a total of $45,000, for a total of $103,709 combined from the PHIG and MCH grants.
Huddleston said she found similar numbers for previous years.
“In 2024, $45,000 was given in bonuses, and in 2023, $51,250,” she said. “I’ve put in the grant award paper for Fiscal Year 2025 for the Maternal and Child Health grant. We see they were on a fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2024, to June 30,2025.”
Huddleston also found concerning information in a pay record for SCHD Administrator Brie Greeson for August 2025.
“Under ‘Other pay,’ there is an entry for one of these quarterly bonuses April had listed, and under year-to-date, it shows this to be the third such payment,” Huddleston said. “However, August 2025 is no longer in Fiscal Year 2025. This is te first of a set of $45,000 in bonus payments for Fiscal Year 2026, which the commission apparently authorized last year.”
Huddleston then shared pages from commission worksheets relating to the FY 2026 budget which again showed $58,709 in bonuses from the PHIG grant and $45,000 from a grant from the Maternal Health Innovations Program.
“These bonuses will be rolling out in quarterly payments when those from the Maternal and Child Health grant ends,” she said. “Those two sets of bonuses approved on the 2026 budget total another $103,709.”
Huddleston also shared documents showing hours worked by SCHD staff in 2023, 2024 and through August 2025.
“The average in 2023 was 34.5 hours, for 2024 was 34.1 hours and for the first eight months of 2025, 33.9 hours per week,” she said. “When she appeared before the commission at one of the budget work sessions in June, Brie talked about everything they were doing to save money and indicated they might have to cut the hours the health department is open to the public to 8 to 5 Monday through Thursday. Money for operations is down. However, Brie failed to mentioned they had $103,709 set aside for bonuses in the coming year.”
Huddleston said with bonuses already paid out and others approved, this totals $326,000, with $241,0000 of that going to seven staff members.
“I hope you are shocked by these numbers as I was and will take action to put the money that can still be reassigned into wages for staff so they can increase their hours, provide more services to the public and get this money at the same time,” she said.
County residents Bill and Marcia Hatcher also gave their input on the situation. Bill said he believes county leaders need to meet with those from Conestoga.
“You made the comment one time we’d have to pay interest,” he said. “These people out here are all going to have to pay interest on it. Let’s be fair to the people who pay you these taxes, and let’s help them. Go talk to them. President Trump went to Egypt and made a deal with Gaza and got that done. Surely, you can go half a mile north and figure out something.”
Marcia said she was concerned about the long-term effects and what might happen because of the 13-mill increase.
“The first thing I thought of was we might as well sell and move out,” she said.
At an earlier meeting, Commissioner Presephoni Fuller said Liberal could experience a mass exodus, and Marcia said just as Fuller does not want that exodus, neither does she or any other community members.
“I see that happening with this kind of emphasis on the taxes,” Marcia said. “I see we won’t be able to attract new businesses because of it. We have several people right now selling farm ground, and if I was buying any of it, I wouldn’t want to do that with that kind of an increase. I see there are a lot of ramifications in the future, not just for this year. Please just consider what you’re doing to the county, and see if there’s a way we can work this out. I don’t want to see the county and the towns of Liberal and Kismet go down. We’re hurting anyway. Let’s see what we can do to build it up.”
