By EARL WATT • Leader & Times After receiving an initial vote from the Seward County Commission to use Seward County Treasurer state-reimbursed funds for raises for staff, and then having the commission rescind those raises two weeks later, Seward County Treasurer Mary Rose filed a lawsuit against the Seward County Commission for what she claims to be retaliatory action against her. The lawsuit alleges that despite the commission not having oversight of the elected treasurer’s statutory duties, the commission was “upset that the Treasurer would not simply hand over certain documents pertaining to the Board’s illegal imposition of a mill levy.” The suit alleges that counsel for the Seward County Commission also requested tax payer information from Rose pertaining to the mill levy that was revoked after the resignations of Scott Carr, Tammy Sutherland-Abbott and Presephoni Fuller, the three commissioners who voted in favor of the 17-mill tax increase in late 12025, and after the Republican Party replaced them with Jairo Vazquez, Clay Louderback and John Mettlen, the tax hike was revoked when the commission opted to voluntarily support hose who filed protests with the Kansas Board of Tax Appeals and returned to revenue neutral. When county counselor Forrest Rhodes requested the information on those who filed protests, the filing alleges that “Counsel contacts the Board of Revenue and determined the board could get the information in discovery of those cases that were not being dropped. Again, the Board did not like this outcome.” In past years, Rose has given her surplus funds to the county’s general fund, but this year she sought to bring her employees in line with others without needing to raise local taxes since the funds form the State are in the exclusive control to the treasurer. But because she opted to use those funds in her own department rather than turn them over to the general fund, and because she did not cooperate with what she believed attempts to violate statute, that the Board’s “desire for her to hand over her Treasurer’s fund surplus instead of spending it on her employees caused the board to retaliate against the Treasurer and revoke the office raise the day with was implemented.” The suit seeks an injunction against rescinding the pay raises for the Treasurer’s department as well as enjoining the Board from any other attempts at revoking the pay raise and “otherwise targeting the Treasurer’s office.”