EARL WATT
• Leader & Times
Documents that committed Seward County financially to grant applications have been discovered with no action from the commission to support the signatures.
Signatures appearing to be those of Seward County Chair Scott Carr appears on grant applications dated Aug. 14, 2023, March 22, 2024 and March 3, 2025 along with a document signed by what appears to be Tammy Sutherland-Abbott’s signature March 10, 2023, were obtained by Open Record Requests by local citizen Carolyn Huddleston while researching the grants that have been awarded to Seward County.
These applications are for several hundreds thousands of dollars, and many of the grants require matching fund commitments, which means the authorizations would commit local tax dollars to receive some of the grants.
A request was also made to receive the commission meeting records to show when the county commission as a whole voted to receive the grants, but there was no record of any votes ever taking place.
An additional request was made to seek any local policies that would allow a single commissioner to obligate the county without any action of the body, and Seward County Administrator April Warden responded “there is no overarching policy governing this, so we have no document responsive to your request.”
One of the many grants obtained without a signature, the Maternal and Child Health Care Grant for 2026 was given matching funds of $179,127 according to research done by Huddleston and listed on documents obtained through Open Records requests, all with no recorded action by the commission as a whole.
According to KSA 19-101, a county commission is a body politic, meaning decisions must be made by a majority of the five Seward County Commissioners as one.
The breach could result in actions that could nullify the applications and could be considered a failure to perform duties prescribed by law, a recallable offense.
