ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Seward County hosted its most recent tax sale Friday, Dec. 12, and Treasurer Mary Rose said out of 28 parcels up for sale, 26 were successfully sold.
Rose said 43 of the 62 registered qualified buyers were in attendance at the sale, and a large majority, $457,000 out of the $656,000 due, was collected in the sale.
Rose said the county’s next sale will take place in January 2026, and proceeds from the recent sale will be held through most of the rest of 2025 to make sure paperwork clears.
“Then we will be transferring them over to the county treasurer,” she said at last Monday’s county commission meeting.
Rose said she did need a specific fund for the proceeds.
“I do need a vote to make sure when I receive those funds from the sheriff’s office, I can deposit them in those funds moving forward in proceedings with all tax sales,” she said.
Commissioners would ultimately vote 3-2 to create such a fund, with commissioners Tammy Sutherland-Abbott and Presephoni Fuller voting against the motion, but much discussion ensued before the vote.
Commission Chair Scott Carr asked how such funds had been handled in past years. As she has only been treasurer for about two years, Rose said she was unsure of how they were handled.
“I do believe at that point in time, the sheriff handled that, and then it went through district court,” she said. “We’re handling this a little different because we are contracted out through Glendale Astrom. This particular funding has mirrored that, and with that being said, the instructions of how we proceed forward with the funding were given to me. Prior to that, it was through the sheriff, and they handled those proceeds and then wrote the county treasurer a check, and they put that money toward the taxes.”
Rose said any tax collected by her is later distributed to the county’s taxing entities five times a year.
“If I receive those delinquent taxes in March, they’re going to be distributed out in May,” she said. “It doesn’t go in a holding fund. It goes in the delinquent.”
Commission Vice Chair Steve Helm said taxes from personal property, delinquent personal property and about half of the recent tax sale are redeemed prior to the sale.
“Those are going into funds specifically for delinquent taxes, and those funds are then distributed out at the time of distribution,” Rose said.
Helm asked where this money went. Rose said it goes to the general fund and distributed through a journal entry.
“It’s done internally, and it goes to the funds,” she said. “Then the clerk’s office puts all of those funds, the money in those funds’ entry. They have a different fund each one. 689 is current tax, 694 is delinquent. All of that money goes in those funds, and at distribution, it pulls it from how much entity is supposed to get from that.”
Administrator April Warden said these funds are levied even when the county collects on a delinquent tax, and that is how the distribution works in that4 case.
“I don’t know if we can deviate from saying all of that money needs to go towards Arkalon,” she said. “Those taxes are set at budget time, and those levies are set. When she makes a distribution, that’s where that money has to go on the tax distribution.”
“If they’re delinquent taxes, it’s going to show on their check what year it was paid, and it’s automatically going to putt that over to those from that delinquent fund,” Rose said.
Helm later made a motion to create a repayment fund for the Arkalon Energy settlement, and he and Commissioner Todd Stanton asked if money could actually earmark delinquent taxes for such a purpose rather simply put them in the general fund, where Warden said the county has a line item for the matter.
“It just says protested tax, or it could say Arkalon, but it’s within the general fund,” Warden said. “It’s not a separate fund. Can it be set aside in that specific line item for repayment to the Arkalon Ethanol pending case?”
County Clerk Stacia Long said reminded commissioners and staff of the budget hearings and published budgets to collect taxes on certain statutory authorities.
“When she’s collecting the tax, that portion has to go into each of those, same with the city, school, every taxing entity,” she said. “You can’t levy tax for one reason and put it over here for some other reason and change the budget or do a transfer within your budget, but in collecting taxes, you can’t just change mid-year where you’re going to put that money you’re collecting.”
Attorney Forrest Rhodes with the Wichita-based law firm Foulston Siefkin, which serves as the county’s current counsel, said the tax sale proceeds would go into the general fund, and commissioners could decide how to spend it.
“If the motion and the approval is to not spend it, you would just decide that money is not spent,” he said. “Was there a budget item? Did the budget contemplate money coming in from the sale, and did you have a revenue item there that already accounts for what we expected to get from the sale?”
“It is a line item within the general fund,” Warden said.
Rhodes said the ultimate question boils down to whether the county can simply set the proceeds aside.
“All we’re talking about is the portion of those proceeds the county will keep at the end of the day after everything else is distributed to the other taxing entities,” he said. “Can you simply set that aside, and make sure it doesn’t get spent, and you can decide what you want to spend it on later. Your goal would be to spend it on the settlement, the resolution of that when there’s ultimately a decision. I don’t see a problem with doing that. You’re just deciding not to spend revenue to fund money.”
Warden said part of county’s distribution goes to its Rural Fire District and a mill levy set for the Road and Bridge department.
Long said the discussion was about two different items she felt had been combined into one.
“There’s a difference between the delinquent taxes collected and the tax sale money collected,” she said. “Delinquent taxes have to go to wherever they were levied for period. Tax sale money is a whole different subject.”
“On the tax sale money, some of this money will go toward the taxes due on those parcels, and when the distribution is done for this tax sale, I’ll have to do it separate,” Rose said. “I’ll have to do a separate distribution for this.”
When she does the distribution, Rose said forms will give both the amounts the county has and that are delinquent.
“When that goes over to the clerk’s office, I call it a voucher because it’s done internally with the money, but it’ll tell us how much that money is, and from there, you could move it to a fund you wish to put that money into to allocate for whatever you want to,” she said. “We would know at that point in time it is delinquent because anything after 2024 is delinquent, so it is possible to know the figure. It is possible to put it into a fund, but you’re going to have to put it where we’re supposed to go and then move it to where you want it to go.”
Fuller asked why creating a fund for the proceeds is necessary. Rose said it allows all redemption fees and proceeds to be tracked in one place.
“They collect the funds, and they hold them in the general account,” Rose said. “They would earmark on the tax foreclosure, and they would suggest that not happen in this circumstance. They ask treasurers try to make special funds of special checking accounts.”
Rose said creating a proceeds fund would complete the process to put tax sale money in a secure account.
“We are trying to move forward doing this every year, and to do it every year, I need to have a fund put in there,” she said.
