Questions remain on adoption of county budget

By Charlene Sims

info@linncountyjournal.com

MOUND CITY – Commission Chair Jim Johnson and Jason Hightower signed the final Linn County budget on Monday, Oct. 6, but there’s a question of whether the commission actually made a motion to approve it. 

County Clerk Danielle Souza told them that they had approved it on Sept. 29. But the video recording recording of that meeting seems to show different. Souza told them to go ahead and sign the budget which was actually due to her on Wednesday, Oct. 1, and she would backdate it to the Sept. 29 meeting.

The Journal sent an email to County Counselor Jacklyn Paletta questioning whether a motion was made to approve the 2026 budget. She replied that a consensus was met at the Sept. 22 meeting.

At that Sept. 22 meeting, a few budgets had not been completely decided, but it was the consensus that anything over the revenue neutral rate would be taken out of the county’s contingency fund.

Paletta said that the budget was approved at the Sept. 29 meeting when the  vote was taken and Johnson put his signature on a document that approved completion of budget assistance by the county’s contracted accountant, Scot Loyd.

At that meeting, that document was explained to Johnson and Hightower by Souza.

“This is just for the Scot Loyd Group and the commissioners are agreeing that the group did what they were hired to do,” Souza told the commissioners before they approved the document.

Commissioners Jim Johnson and Jason Hightower both said that they had reviewed the budgets and agreed with them, but the motion was made specifically to approve work by the accounting firm. It did not specify officially adopting the Linn County budget.

In the past, the commission has always voted on a specific motion to approve the budget, just as several cities and school boards in the county have done this year before the deadline. The commissioners made no such motion. If the budget is contested, it may force the county to resort back to the 2025 budget according to state regulations.

According to the Kansas Office of Accounts and Reports timeline, the county clerk must receive the certified budget by 5 p.m. on Oct. 1. If it is not received by that deadline, “the County Clerk shall use the previous year’s budget information and amount of ad valorem tax to be levied for such taxing subdivision.”

In a phone interview, Hightower was questioned about whether the budget had been approved on Sept. 29, he reviewed the recording of that meeting and said that it had not been approved and that it would be taken care of on Monday, Oct. 6.

Paletta answered by email that the document that was prepared by the Scot Loyd Group is in fact the certified budget because the back page of the 27 page document is titled “Budget Approval”. She said the motion that was made to authorize the chairperson to sign the documents prepared by the Scot Loyd Group, documents which contained the certified budget. But she said Johnson inadvertently neglected to sign the first page. 

In her email, Paletta said that Souza had contacted the state about how to rectify the mistake and the state had told her to just have the first page signed on Oct. 6.

At the Oct. 6 meeting, Souza told the commissioners, “Last week you reviewed and approved the budgets. I had you sign the review verification page. I didn’t have you sign the certificate page. So I am just needing to collect signatures for the certificate page. This is submitting your signature on the budgets you’ve already reviewed and approved. And that’s going to be Linn County Rural Fire, Cemetery 4, Cemetery 1 and District No. 1, I’m sorry, Linn County Sewer District No. 1.”

Johnson asked if the commission should sign where it says “governing body” and do all three commissioners need to sign. Commissioner Alison Hamilton was not able to attend the meeting so having all three signatures was a concern.

Souza answered, “Yes, both of you need to sign. That’s still a majority. So that’ll be good.”

An interview with Mandy Patek at the Kansas State Office of Accounts and Reports on Wednesday, Oct. 8, did not yield much clarity on the budget approval process. Patek was fairly vague in her answers until it was brought up that the commission never made a separate motion to approve the budget.

“She (Souza) did not tell me that they did not approve it,” Patek then said.

To add to the confusion of the Linn County budget process this year, the official notice of the  county’s intent to exceed the revenue neutral rate was not published in time for the revenue neutral hearing. So even though Commissioners Alison Hamilton and Hightower had voted on July 14 to exceed revenue neutral by no more than 3.15 mills, the county was forced to adopt a revenue neutral rate because it was not published in a timely manner. 

Johnson, who was adamant that the county adopt a revenue neutral rate, would have been the sole vote to increase the county’s general fund tax levy. However, the delay in publishing the required notice made the hearing a moot point.

Jackie Taylor, publisher of the Linn County News came to the Aug. 18 meeting to explain the circumstances which kept the notice from being published at the proper date. Taylor came to the meeting to explain how this had happened because rumors were being spread that it was the newspaper’s fault.

Taylor expressed her understanding that Souza was new and had a lot to learn in a short time. But she also wanted to dispel rumors that her paper was at fault. She presented emails between the Linn County News staff and Souza which showed that Souza had originally sent the wrong form to the newspaper. The Linn County News provided the Linn County Journal with copies of these emails.

Then when the staff did not receive a reply from Souza and the budget did not come out, Souza called and complained. Taylor then went out of her way to have an extra edition printed with a new form that Souza had sent her. However, that form was also incorrect.

After the extra edition was printed, Souza asked Taylor to print the correct form. Taylor did print it in the following week’s newspaper, but that made it too late to be an official notice of the hearing to exceed revenue neutral.

Souza has continued to blame the Linn County News for the exceeding revenue neutral budget hearing notice that was not printed in a timely manner. Rumors have also been spread that it was Hightower’s fault that the county had to go revenue neutral because he was not at that hearing. 

However, even if he had been at the hearing and voted to exceed revenue neutral as Hamilton did, the county would not have been able to exceed revenue neutral because the notice was published too late.

According to KSA 79-2988 (c) (1) “Any governing body subject to the provisions of this section that does not comply with subsection (b) shall refund to taxpayers any property taxes over-collected based on the amount of the levy that was in excess of the revenue neutral rate.”

In a phone conversation on Oct. 8 with Loyd, he said that because the budget form was published late, the county had to go revenue neutral.