04.13.26 Agenda

Public Comments

Michael Brandt spoke to the commission about the forensic audit the commission voted to conduct 3 weeks ago.

He referred to his question at the last meeting regarding a completed audit on the sheriff saying that  the document given to him by commissioner Mika Milburn-Kee was “more of a distraction than anything.”

“There’s been no audit completed,” he said.

After multiple emails to all the commissioners, he received no response. He said that the vote taken 3 weeks ago on the forensics audit was based on inaccurate information provided by Commissioner Samuel Tran.

“This group are the only people that can hold each other accountable,” he said. “It’s incumbent on you guys to bring that back to the table with the additional information and do an additional vote on it, in my opinion. I don’t know how else to hold dishonesty accountable.”

Brad Matkin, Fort Scott City Manager, updated the commission on several changes in Fort Scott.

The Value building has sold and the new owner will start hiring in 2027, planning to bring in 60 jobs initially and more over time.

Last week the city entertained a manufacturing company from California that made an offer on the Timkin building. The company is expected to bring in 200 new jobs to the area, as well as expanding the building.

“They are a true blue manufactoring company,” said Matkin, similar to what Timkin was.

The Moody building is in the process of being donated to the city once the title paperwork is complete. An investor is considering turning it into either apartments or a hotel.

“Hopefully we can get that eyesore taken care of and turn it into a beautiful building,” Matkin said.

He also praised Mary Wyatt for her help in getting these companies to come look at the properties.

“We are very excited,” said Matkin about the new businesses moving into the area.

Executive Session K.S.A. 75-4319 (b)(4) – Motley

The executive session lasted 30 minutes and included the five commissioners, County Attorney Bob Johnson, Pamela Lenier, Rick James, Tim Shallenberger, and Brad Matkin.

Upon return to regular session, Commissioner Gregg Motley moved to allocated $10,000 for legal and title work fees to explore legal action based on a county contract. Commissioner Joe Allen seconded.

Milburn-Kee said she wants further discussion before allocating funding. Tran agreed and said they need to collect more facts before allocating the funding.

Commissioner David Beerbower agreed that the situation is critical and more information will probably come out as this thing moves forward.

Motion carried, Milburn-Kee and Tran voting against.

Senator Tim Shallenberger updated the commission on Kansas State Senate actions that directly affect the county.

Changes include a change to contract law; form changes with the State of Kansas for cities of fewer than 35,000; raising the competitive bid requirement limit to $100,000; Kansas Sport Tourism grant program establishment; increase in penalties for driver cell phone use in construction zones; several election bills that affect the county clerk; and a bill affecting the treasurer.

Asked the commission to give him a letter for the secretary of transportation to increase the speed limit between Pittsburg and Fort Scott.

Also mentioned regulation of pharmacy management companies that will help independent pharmacies and increase in scope of practice for optomotrists.

“I wish that Bourbon County could take a deep breath,” he said. He gets more calls about Bourbon County that both of the other counties he represents combined.

Stronghold Update

Adam from Stronghold Data reported that currently the county’s core systems are all stable and under active monitoring, with security tooling across the board, and a 98% security score in the Microsoft 365. After a full hardware inventory across the county, a handful of machines are scheduled for updating.

Regarding the project Stronghold was hired to do for the county, network segmentation is beginning to be implemented. They are working with the phone server and the criminal justice department.

Initiatives to highlight include configuring the conference room to better support the public live streaming. Also moving everyone to an official .gov domain for emails and the county’s website address will build trust and professionalism with the public.

“We feel that the county systems are more secure and better documented,” than a year ago, he summarized.

Tran had the Stronghold representative confirm that the project his company has been working on for Bourbon County is complete and is now in the “maintenance phase.”

Emergency Services Sales Tax Oversight Committee – Motley

Charles Gentry is a member of the Emergency Room Sales Tax Monitoring Committee, appointed by the commission. The committee’s job is to make sure that the 1/4 cent sales tax is used for the purpose of funding the emergency room.

Gentry said that 2025 taxes collected per the Kansas Department of Revenue totaled $549,675.12, in addition to the dedicated emergency room use tax of $156,053.54 for a total of $705,728.66. Those funds are in Bourbon County Fund 399. There was already money in there prior to January 1, 2025, as taxes were collected for the emergency room starting in October of 2024.

Payments to Freeman Fort Scott hospital in 2025 totaled $710,909.75, leaving $53,609.94 in the fund.

He said his committee would provide a quarterly report at the end of May.

“The promises made with respect to the emergency room sales tax have been kept. And the money is going where it needs to go and is being spent appropriately in funding the emergency room,” he concluded.

Executive Session K.S.A. 75-4319 (b)(1) – Job Performance – Allen; Five commissioners,  Bob Johnson, and Sheriff Bill Martin.

Returned to session, no action.

Department Updates
Payroll – Motley sponsoring Walker

County Clerk Susan Walker represented employees to the commission, speaking on their behalf to support a fair and equitable  work environment for Bourbon County.

Walker said that several departments in Bourbon County have tried to work with the commission on these issues behind closed doors only to receive bribes or a response telling them that that’s just the way it is for everybody.

Walker claimed that many employees who report directly to the commission are in fear of losing their jobs.

“It seems that doing this publicly is the only way for a resolution,” she said.

She began by recounting January 18, 2022 meeting minutes where she and other employees talked to the county commission about sick leave policies. At that time the county was still struggling with Covid-19 and the need to hire more employees. New employees had to wait 7 months to use sick leave and to accrue vacation time, which affected single mothers working for the county. The commission asked her to take it back to the department heads to discuss options. Bobby Reed and Alvin Metcalf were both affected by moving from exempt to non-exempt status, which was addressed by a resolution the commission approved.

Walker explained that resolutions are used to enact laws where no state laws address the subject. Resolution 6-22 was adopted on Jan. 1, 2022 to replace the language in the 2002 handbook and was followed until Walker handed off payroll to the executive assistant to the commission, Laura Krom, at the end of December 2025.

The county commission passed resolution 51-25 on Dec. 18, 2025 stating “Any remaining vacation or sick leave will carry over at the end of 25 for the 26 fiscal year.” This was discussed at length and done to not adversely affect employees during the transition to the new policies in the handbook, according to Walker.

Currently, employees with two full years of employment with the county have their vacation is frontloaded after the second pay period of the year. The amount is based on the employee’s most recent hire date. This year, several did not have the correct amount frontloaded to their vacation and were told that an internal audit was being conducted on records due to the information not properly coming over during the conversion from the clerk’s office running payroll to Payentry.

“I have many department heads that will attest to these statements I am making,” said Walker. She said that the employee information was put in by Payentry personnel.

“It is easy to cast blame on my office for clerical errors. However, this commission rushed the transition of the payroll…and most recent accusations help me understand why,” she said.

Currently employees are locked out of being able to view their vacation or sick leave; and adjustments were made to their time without any communication to the employee about what was happening or why.

On 2/9/26, resolution 6-22 was repealed. This was not made to retroactively take away sick leave from employees, but that still happened to employees hired in 2025.

ON 12/2/2025, Walker’s office printed out accruals of vacation and sick leave, employee files, all date and time stamped, which match the spreadsheet that she gave to the commission at that time.

Walker ran a report on 3/30 showing accrual balances are inaccurate.

According to the Kansas Department of Labor, accrued vacation is considered wages once it has been earned under an agreement or policy, and retroactive reduction of accrued vacation balance is generally viewed as an illegal withholding of wages. The same applies to sick leave, such as that earned under resolution 6-22, said Walker.

Under Kansas KORA laws, a county commissioner does not have the authority to unilaterally access or examine an employee’s personal records that are otherwise closed to the public. Currently a sitting commissioner, the commission’s executive assistant and another unauthorized county employee all are not keeping with the KORA laws regarding county employee records, according to Walker.

Before the payroll was completed, on Nov. 13, 2025, the clerk’s office printed off employee records to audit them. During this audit four employment dates were identified that needed to be addressed. On March 30, 2026, her office again printed the same report and identified 21 employees with an altered hire date.

This is important because hire dates are used to match resumes when calling up employment history, and for calculating KSPERS retirement and benefit eligibility.

In the Payentry system, hire dates are changed to most recent position change date, regardless of original hire date, affecting the employee’s accruals.

The employees affected by changes to their accrued vacation and sick leave were in attendance at the commission meeting. Walker said that 41 county employees have been affected by these issues.

“From 2016 to the present, the county has had numerous different payroll clerks,” she said. They handled records various ways, but all changes and the person who made them were recorded.

“For months my office and other offices have over-communicated to this governing body to get silence. If silence is your way of responding to the retention of employees and treating them fairly, then maybe you should resign your position,” she said.

The county employees deserve communication at the very least, she said.

“These employees deserve better,” said Walker as she handed the mic to employees in attendance.

One said that a retroactive handbook was unprecedented and current employees should be grandfathered in.

Another said he had an executive session with the commission to get his leave issues straightened out. He said that after 16 years working for the county, he is being treated like a 2-year employee. He is receiving silence from the commission. He spoke to the HR department and they recommended an hourly increase in his wages.

“I’m not fine with accepting a monetary, hourly increase in my wages. I want my time,” he said. His family ended up cancelling a cruise they had booked because of the errors in vacation time accrual. He claimed that he had earned 160 hours of vacation time prior to Jan. 1.

“Somebody swallow the pride pill and just do what’s right for the employees,” he said. He then thanked Susan for advocating for the employees.

Tanner O’Dell, public works employee, said his Feb. paystub has 13 hours of sick leave removed. He said he spoke to Laura Krom, the commission’s executive assistant, who told him she was told to block out the employees while she was making the changes.

“Who told her to do that?” asked O’Dell. Tran said he didn’t know.

Lora Holdridge, Register of Deeds, called Payentry for a problem with her own hire date, which is off by more than 10 years. Payentry told here they are only allowed to communicate with commissioner Mika Milburn-Kee and Laura Krom. Holdridge has asked Krom to fix it five times, as she is nearing retirement herself.

Holdridge pointed out that Milburn-Kee is not supposed to have access as a commissioner, and Krom doesn’t have the training she needs to handle payroll. She suggested that payroll go back to the clerk’s office.

Commissioner Tran said he hears a lot of issues and problems that are specific to them. He said that a supervisor failed to correctly identify a double overtime, which delayed payroll last week and Krom had to fix it.

Tran said he doesn’t believe someone is purposely messing up the system. He dealt with four pay issues last week that were caused by human error, either supervisor or employee. “Either way we fixed it,” he said. He went on to defend the Payentry system.

Walker asked to speak again, claiming he was saying false things.

“A lot of people have said false things tonight, Susan,” replied Milburn-Kee.

Commissioner David Beerbower asked for a 3 minute recess to make copies.

An argument between Walker and Tran ensued.

Tran began collecting details from employees who have issues with their vacation and sick leave accruals.

One employee pointed out that it’s wrong to retroactively enforce the new employee handbook policies and take away their vacation and sick leave. He suggested a motion be made to remove the retroactive portion.

Beerbower made a motion allowing all county employees to access their time entry and make additions and subtractions until the end of each pay period, as they do with the Sheriff’s Department and EMS. This would be instead of clocking in and clocking out. The supervisor still has to approve the time card.

Motley seconded.

Milburn-Kee is concerned with the errors that would be generated, adding to Krom’s load.

Tran expressed concern with unintended consequences of making this change.

Motley said he gets five emails about Payentry for every one he gets about another issue every pay period.

“It’s ridiculous. We have to change the way we’re doing things,” he said.

Another employee suggested that supervisors should be given training on Payentry.

Commissioner Joe Allen pointed out that there’s obviously an issue as nearly half of the county employees were in attendance at the meeting.

Terry with EMS said that not allowing the county employees to put in their own time makes it look like the commission doesn’t trust the employees.

Tran said that it’s not about trust, but having standards.

He then declared he would abstain from the vote because he doesn’t know enough about the issue yet.

Payentry also has issues with the time clock program.

Motion carried with Milburn-Kee voting against.

Beerbower moved that all sick and vacation time be made visible to the employees. Motion carried unanimously.

Beerbower then motioned that the chair contact Krom with the changes. Motion carried unanimously, Tran abstaining.

Beerbower has been working on a resolution. He read it in the meeting. It includes front-loading vacation at the beginning of the year with a carry-over maximum of 200 hours. Excess vacation for employees with 10 or more years of service may convert up to 40 hours of unused vacation to sick leave.

Sick leave hours for full time employees will be front loaded as well at 80 hours for the year. Sick leave has no carryover limits, but 180 hours is the maximum collectible.

Beerbower suggested basing their years of service on their longevity pay received at the end of 2025.

Motley asked how the resolution will impact the missing vacation and sick leave hours employees are currently dealing with. Beerbower said the resolution would frontload all those benefits.

There will be no payout of sick time and vacation if employees leave the county before retirement age.

Tran asked what would happen if an employee burned through his vacation and sick leave and then quit.

Beerbower said his resolution is a proposal, but he recognizes it needs work.

“We shouldn’t be doing this as a deep dive. This, to me, is a fix to the problems that we’ve got now,” he said.

Terry with EMS said she approved Beerbower’s resolution and the employees in the room clapped.

Beerbower asked Bob Johnson, county attorney, to look over the resolution.

Beerbower said that his understanding of Kansas labor laws leaves it all up to the county to make employment policies.

Motley said his desire is to restore everyone to the levels they had Dec. 31, 2025.

An audience member pointed out that the last resolution the commission passed in 2025 was to carry over leave earned.

Another one mentioned that the hire dates need to be corrected.

Beerbower asked that the human resources department train department heads on the handbook and that Payentry come do a work station time to fix the problems employees are having.