LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Carolyn Huddleston, Liberal
Going through the January pay records for Seward County, I noticed something I want to make the public aware of. County employees weren’t supposed to be getting raises — even the old Commission had been pretty clear about that — but in the January 2026 pay records it shows that all the staff of Cimarron Basin Community Corrections had been given raises. Yes, friends, Kayla Janko, who previously was making $104,957 per year, now has a salary of $107,598 per year, and her Intensive Supervision Officers, who were making $30.99 per hour, are now earning $31.77 per hour (which means $66,082 annually).
In the Comprehensive Grant Plan between Cimarron Basin and Kansas Department of Corrections, it says “grantees must demonstrate salaries for all positions are consistent with similar county-funded positions.” I pointed out before that CBCC was in violation of that grant condition, and the discrepancies in pay have only gotten larger.
Since I last wrote I learned that only a high school diploma or GED is required to hold a job at Cimarron Basin, which isn’t to say that the staff may not have some higher education.
A college education isn’t required for the Sheriff’s Deputies either, although most have at least a two-year degree, usually in Criminal Justice, and all have gone through training at a police academy. The detention officers only are required to have a high school diploma or GED. They get on-the-job training, and the sheriff’s deputies no doubt do also — and so would the corrections officers. Because of the additional training that is required for the deputies, plus the fact that theirs is a more hazardous duty, in my opinion, the pay for the deputies should be higher than that of the supervision officers.
So what does the data say at this point? The sheriff himself is still earning a salary of $84,003, and the undersheriff still earns $70, 983. There are also five high-ranking staff, and their average pay is $64,807. Kayla Janko is making $23,595 more than the sheriff, $36,615 more than the undersheriff, and $42,791 more than the average of the rest of the high ranking staff. Further, the supervision officers (whose base pay is $66,082 at this time) make more than three of these salaried deputies.
Now on to the rank and file deputies. I used organizational charts with job titles to drop out of this comparison all the sheriff’s department employees who were not law enforcement officers. In the target group, pay ranged from a high of $25 to a low of $19, with the median being $22, and the average, $22.33. Among the detention officers, the range of wages went from a high of $24.21 to a low of $15.91 per hour. This distribution had a median of $18.79 and the average was $19.46.
So what do you think friends? Is Janko’s salary, now $23,595 more than that of the sheriff, and $36,615 more than the undersheriff, justified? Is it consistent with that of individuals in county-funded jobs of similar responsibility? This woman supervises three intensive supervision officers, while the sheriff supervises a total of 51 staff and not only has responsibility for law enforcement and detention of prisoners but also would be the person in charge in the event of a local disaster. And the undersheriff is his right-hand man. Indeed, any of the sheriff’s top staff supervise more people and, in my opinion, have greater job responsibility than Janko. But her pay is $42,791 more than the average of that group, and $55,120 more than the one of them earning the least.
And how about her supervision officers? Is $31.77 in line with that of the rank and file deputies, whose average pay is $22.33? Or what about the detention officers, which I believe should be their true reference group, where the mid-point of the distribution was $18.79, and the average was $19.46 per hour? It’s clear the sheriff’s department is underfunded, but still there’s a serious problem here.
Open records indicate that the Seward County Commission didn’t grant these raises, and it wasn’t the Cimarron Basin Advisory Board, either. No friends, from what I understand, the one responsible is County Administrator April Warden. If you feel as outraged about this as I do, please tell your Commissioner.
