FORT SCOTT — The Bourbon County Commission voted 3-2 Monday night to hire a local human resources provider for one year. Commissioners Samuel Tran and Mika Milburn-Kee voted no; Tran objected that the proposals should have gone through a formal selection process. Earlier in the meeting, a state official told commissioners the county fell short of the state’s appraisal compliance standard, and four Public Works employees spoke in support of Public Works Director Kenny Allen.

Chairman Gregg Motley presided, with Commissioners Joe Allen, David Beerbower, Mika Milburn-Kee and Tran.

Agenda changes, minutes and bills

The commission agreed to interrupt public comment for a scheduled call with the state, then resume comments. Beerbower asked to postpone the executive session on sheriff’s office personnel until next week and struck the backhoe bids from old business. Tran added Range Road under new business, and Motley added the treasurer’s quarterly reports. The board approved the agenda as amended and the minutes of the Oct. 5 and Oct. 9 meetings.

Beerbower corrected the first accounts payable batch, listed in the packet at $334,783.98, to $428,742.99, saying the total had not finished adding up. The second batch was $259,024.30. Tran pointed to county credit card charges of $69.75 at Holmtown and $63.74 at Nu Grille, plus a Hampton Inn charge of about $129. “I don’t think that’s right that people are buying stuff if they’re in town,” he said. The board approved accounts payable with those three charges pulled. When the board came back from a recess later in the meeting, Tran said, “I have an alibi, if I may.” “An alibi?” Motley asked. Tran then pointed to two back-to-back $1,219.15 items in Fund 108 as a possible double billing; Motley said it would be checked between meetings.

Employees speak for public works director

Four employees used public comment to back Public Works Director Kenny Allen. Tanner Odell said he had heard allegations that his boss might be fired that night.

Odell said Allen “leads by example like a boss should.” Bobby Reed said, “From my observations, this is a witch hunt against Mr. Allen.” Reed said there is an allegation that a photo of Allen’s personal vehicle on a lift at the county barn was sent to a commissioner, and that it has been common practice for county employees to work on their own vehicles in the garage, with the understanding that it not be for personal gain or on county time. “If you’re gonna write Mr. Allen up for this, which in my opinion is wrong, you better do a deep dive and a better investigation than the last one,” Reed said, adding that he has worked on his own vehicle there. He called it “a witch hunt by one or two commissioners…I would think there are a lot bigger items to solve than continually messing with the employees.”

Kyle Schnickel said employees have seen their insurance go up, pay cuts and no raises. Clay Campbell questioned the investigation by the county’s HR contractor, Cohen. Campbell said he was told 12 current employees were interviewed and seven former employees were called, and that he understood nine or 10 of the questions were about Allen’s job performance and only one about the allegation.

State: county out of appraisal compliance

Mike Dallman of the Kansas Department of Revenue’s Property Valuation Division held the call state law requires with any county found out of substantial compliance. Bourbon County scored 63.1 of 100 points; 75 is needed.

Most of the shortfall was in the statistics. The median ratio for residential property, which compares appraised values with sale prices, was 77.7%, below the 90% to 110% standard, and the commercial median was 66.5%. Residential uniformity passed, meaning that the county had appraised residential property at a similar percentage of their actual selling price. Commercial uniformity did not, meaning commercial properties were appraised at very different percentages of their selling price.

The county earned 21.1 of 50 statistical points for the accuracy of the assessments, but did significantly better on the procedural part of the assessment gaining 47 of 50 procedural points. However, they then lost 5 points for two missteps. The market trend notice was not published at least 10 days before change-of-value notices were mailed. There was also inconsistent coding for 162/163 component codes and on web soil survey data submitted after the state’s deadline. Dallman said both of those are easy fixes on the procedural side of things.

The study used 112 residential and 19 commercial sales from 2025. Dallman said the number of people in the county who appeal their valuation is probably low “because, I mean, I hate to say it, the values are low.” Whether to raise values is up to the commission and the appraiser, he said, adding that there seemed to be a little more interest from the Statehouse this year in counties out of compliance, though he did not know what, if anything, would come of it. Milburn-Kee asked how the state picks and validates the sales it uses; Dallman said the state does its own sales validation, the county can appeal individual sales, and counties may submit a market trend if they also apply it in their own analysis. He praised the county’s new appraiser, Danielle, and said the state gives a new appraiser a year to get settled on non-statutory procedures, though statutory deadlines still apply.

Executive sessions

The commission met for 10 minutes in executive session on insurance matters with Christy Mitchell, Don Doherty and Jeremy Bowman of the county’s insurance services firm and returned with no action. Doherty said the firm would keep looking at options and bring them back.

Tran then moved two executive sessions on the duty performance of non-elected personnel, 15 and 20 minutes, with the five commissioners only. After the first, on Tran’s motion, the board authorized Motley to sign a payroll change document reflecting “the consensus that the five of us came to in executive session.” The second ended with no action.

Transfer station backhoe

Diane Ballou of the transfer station asked where the backhoe stood. Beerbower said he struck it because it had been voted down five times at the last meeting, and it was up to those who voted against it to decide what equipment the station gets. “I’m here to say we need something,” Ballou said, describing the current machine as worn out. “I shouldn’t have to come up here and beg for something to work with.”

Motley said that because of the tight budget he wants to “survive until January” with repairs, then buy a machine whose first payment would come in January 2028. He said Ben Hart of Baker Tilly, the county’s financial consultant, is building equipment depreciation and replacement schedules for every department at no extra cost. Tran said departments need written replacement and maintenance plans: “You can’t run a county by reacting.” Ballou said the need predated Public Works Director Allen. Beerbower noted that a backhoe purchase was approved in July and then reversed, and that the department then brought five bids as directed. He said the transfer station had a $96,000 profit or carryover in 2025, that a new backhoe was priced at $120,000, and that in his view the current machine’s frame is broken and puts workers at risk.

Ballou said the station’s rates are well below other facilities’ and could go up for out-of-county customers without losing business. Motley asked her to recommend how much out-of-county rates could rise, and said he would favor that; Milburn-Kee said she would not vote for an increase on in-county customers right now. On holiday hours, Beerbower said he will never vote to open on holidays and that Saturdays need two workers. Ballou said the station is down to two workers, herself and one other, after a third quit; that worker’s last day is Friday.

Holiday meetings, payroll software, Verizon

The board approved the treasurer’s quarterly reports. It revised Resolution 21-26 so that a meeting falling on a county holiday moves to the next business day and, at Beerbower’s request, struck Section 3A, which called for alternating regular meetings with work sessions.

On a motion by Milburn-Kee, the board approved a $1,200 software license so the county’s Pay Entry payroll system can import into its CIC accounting software. Motley said the county has had “issues for 10 months now of incorrect accounting entries” and that the last four payrolls had not been entered; Milburn-Kee said Laura Krom, the commission’s executive assistant, had since been breaking those payrolls down by department for the accounts payable clerk. The fix will not correct past entries, Motley said, and he favors moving payroll back to CIC later, without rushing it: “I think we need to do this. And take our time on the transition back to CIC. I think we need to go back to CIC, but we need to take out time, do it right, and not have the disruptions that we had last time.”

The motion passed, though Beerbower asked for another week to review it and voted against.

The problem dates to the county’s move of payroll from CIC to the outside service Pay Entry in late 2025. CIC’s payroll posted directly to the county’s books; Pay Entry does not, so the County Clerk’s office has had to enter payroll into the ledger by hand from reports, a manual process of typing in each number that could potentially introduce errors. Krom, hired in December to run Pay Entry, prepares those reports under a February resolution. Former County Clerk Susan Walker told commissioners Aug. 10, shortly before her resignation took effect, that the county had had eight months of payroll problems where the PayEntry reports that needed to be manually entered into CIC were incomplete, miscoded, and contained incorrect deductions. She recommended Baker Tilly take over the payroll ledger entries. Motley said Monday that fixing the backlog is not in Baker Tilly’s contract and the firm would charge extra for it.

The board also authorized Motley to sign a new one-year Verizon contract after Beerbower suggested seeking proposals from other carriers first. Beerbower voted against the contract. On Beerbower’s motion, each elected official and department head, or a designee, will get administrative rights on the county’s Verizon account; Beerbower said the sheriff’s office has been unable to get two phones it needs. The board continued TEC remote support at $60 per device per year for the phone system’s voicemail computer and the computer that live-streams meetings.

Conservation district gets $5,000 more

Deb Lusk, treasurer of the Bourbon County Conservation District, said the district’s budget line was approved at $20,000 of the $40,000 it requested. She said an additional $5,000 from the county would let the district draw a two-to-one Kansas Water Fund match that she put at an additional $50,000 for local farmers’ conservation work, such as fencing ponds. On Motley’s motion, the board added $5,000. Vice President Ronnie Brown, who said he has been involved with the district for nearly 40 years, spoke about road and streambank erosion, cedar trees and the district’s youth programs.

Road complaints

Tran said constituents report potholes on Range Road between the Devon bridge and 145th and a broken guardrail on the south side of the bridge, and that he gets no feedback from Public Works on road reports. He also mentioned a Valley Road report, and Milburn-Kee raised complaints about signs hidden by trees at a Little Osage bridge. Joe Allen and Motley said they had not been receiving the road-report emails from the county website, which they concluded was because the county is now in 5 districts, and they have not been added. On Beerbower’s motion, the board set Public Works Director updates for the first and third Mondays of each month.

HR hire

The county received three responses to its request for proposals for human resources services. Milburn-Kee said she had found HR support available at no added cost through the county’s insurer, KCAMP, and Beerbower suggested reviewing that next week.

Joe Allen then moved to hire Millie Lipscomb as the county’s HR provider for one year, saying employees had told him they “wanted to see a face” in HR. Motley seconded. No price was stated in the meeting, and part of the motion’s wording, about her insurance, was unclear. Reference letters in the agenda packet describe Lipscomb as the HR lead at Niece Products of Kansas since 2021.

Tran objected. “HR has to be impartial,” he said, arguing that a local person may know employees and that the proposals should have been compared in a private source selection rather than discussed in public, to avoid a protest. He said one of the three responses did not meet the work statement. Beerbower and Tran then traded accusations of making assumptions before Motley stopped the exchange.

Motley said many local employers have local HR staff. “This is about spending money in Bourbon County with a qualified person, a person that will be visible, a lot more visible than any outside company,” he said. He said the current provider is good but “doesn’t have the trust of the employees.” Beerbower said he wants an individual rather than a company handling HR, and that the current clerk’s HR experience combined with the insurer’s free resources was the other option he would consider. The motion passed 3-2. Tran (“Vehemently, no”) and Milburn-Kee voted against it.

Meetings move to City Hall

Because early voting began Monday and election workers use the commission room, the board voted to hold its Oct. 26 and Nov. 2 meetings at Fort Scott City Hall, with one vote against. Beerbower said he had arranged it with the city and was told the meetings could be streamed to YouTube from there, though he said he would double-check after commissioners raised questions about logging in to the stream.

The commission tabled the asbestos report until its next meeting and did not reach well testing or the benefit contribution review. Joe Allen said the county’s auction went live on GovDeals Monday and ends next Monday.

Commission comments

Beerbower said the building being set up for court operations goes live Wednesday, but heavy rain caused a leak and a ceiling cave-in in one room. ServiceMaster is finishing the cleanup, and a tarp for the roof will cost $6,500, he said; with ServiceMaster’s bill still to come, the project will go over budget.

Milburn-Kee shared enlarged photos constituents sent her, including one she said appears to show a personal vehicle on a county lift. Tran cited K.S.A. 21-5803 and said using county property for personal use is a misdemeanor.

Milburn-Kee also congratulated the winning HR bidder. She said she hoped Lipscomb’s other work, writing columns for the Bourbon County Monitor, would not cross into the county HR job.

Tran said his objections were not personal, then accused Motley, Joe Allen and Beerbower, who had voted together on the hire, of settling their votes outside public meetings. “Clearly the decision was already made by the three of you before you came to the table,” he said. “Can I prove it? No. But your action speaks louder than words.” He added, “We’re supposed to be one voice, and you three voted together offline. You did it before, and you did it again tonight.”

Motley replied, “My commissioner’s comment is that everything Commissioner Tran just said is wrong,” and the meeting adjourned.