A former maintenance worker’s photos of crumbling pipe insulation prompted a Kansas environmental official to walk the building. The early word, relayed by the county’s emergency manager, was that nothing looked like an immediate hazard as long as the material stays undisturbed. No samples have been taken, and the state is still reviewing.

Questions about asbestos in the Bourbon County Courthouse, raised publicly this week by a former maintenance worker who photographed deteriorating pipe insulation in the basement, led to a visit from a representative from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) to the nearly century-old building. According to the county’s emergency manager, the representative said during the walkthrough that he did not see anything hazardous that had to be addressed right now, as long as the material is not disturbed. The representative is conferring with others at the agency and will get back to the county with more detail about what actions or precautions should be taken.

The courthouse was built in the 1930s, and asbestos is common in buildings of its era. None of the officials contacted for this story disputed that it is likely present. The question residents have been asking is a different one. Is it dangerous, and is anything being done about it?

Asbestos is generally most dangerous when it is crumbling or broken up and its fibers become airborne, where they can be breathed in. Whether the courthouse material is in fact asbestos, and whether it is releasing any fibers, has not been determined, because no samples have been collected and tested. A visual walkthrough cannot answer that on its own.

How the concern surfaced

The issue was raised by William Jackson, who worked in the courthouse maintenance this spring. He said he found insulation and ceiling tiles he believed were asbestos deteriorating in the basement, with dust collecting on supplies and on workers’ desks, and that he could not find any asbestos records in the county’s maintenance files. He sent his supervisor a written request for permission to have the material tested.

Jackson said he sent the request Friday and was fired Saturday morning. He believes the two were connected and that he was let go for raising the concern. County officials declined to comment on his departure.

What the state found

After Jackson’s photos circulated, Bourbon County Emergency Manager Lou Howard walked the building with a KDHE representative, who also had the photos that had been sent to the agency.

“He stated that at the time he looked, he did not see anything that was concerning,” Howard said. “They did not see anything that was hazardous right now that had to be addressed.”

“He did say that if there was active construction going on at the time, then it would be a concern. But nothing is being disturbed. Everything is as it should be.”

Lou Howard, Bourbon County Emergency Manager

Howard said she offered to walk the representative through the rest of the courthouse and that he said he did not need to, based on what he had already seen. She said in the past an area basement had been used as the county’s emergency operations center until other space became available. The review is not finished. The representative was passing the information and photos to a supervisor, and the county is waiting to hear what action it should take, which could include further testing.

More photos from the basement

What this does and doesn’t settle

Howard’s account is the most direct word so far on the courthouse. However, it was a visual walkthrough, not laboratory sampling. No material was collected and tested, and the representative did not view the entire building. Some residents have worried that deteriorating material in the basement could send fibers into the building’s heating and cooling system and on to other floors. The walkthrough did not include air sampling or an evaluation of that system, and the state’s guidance to the county is still pending.

The caution about disturbed material is also the heart of the original complaint. Jackson’s concern was that the insulation is already breaking down. Confirming whether that is releasing any asbestos fibers would require testing.

For now, the practical takeaway for residents and courthouse employees is limited but real. The early, visual look reported by the county found nothing requiring immediate action, the chief risk would come from disturbing the material, and a final determination from the state is still to come.

FortScott.biz will update this story when KDHE provides further guidance.

Bourbon County and four individuals have filed their formal response to former county IT director Shane Walker’s federal lawsuit, and the answer narrows what the case is actually about. On the basic sequence of events, the two sides now largely agree. What remains in dispute is why Shane Walker lost his county job — and whether the officials can be held legally responsible for it.

The defendants (the Board of County Commissioners plus Commissioners Sam Tran, Mika Milburn-Kee and David Beerbower, and contractor Dr. Steve Cohen) filed their answer June 23 in U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas (Document 13), represented by Andrew D. Holder of Fisher, Patterson, Sayler & Smith. They answered the complaint rather than moving to dismiss it, on a deadline the clerk had extended to that date. For the claims Shane Walker raised, see our earlier report: Federal Lawsuit Alleging Retaliation, Discrimination, and FMLA Violations.

Where the parties now agree

The answer admits key dates and events in the timeline Walker laid out, even as it denies the bulk of his broader allegations. The county admits that he worked for the county from about December 15, 2005 until he left the payroll on or around July 9, 2025; that the commission’s vote to eliminate his position was unanimous and that the county outsourced the IT department; and that the elected Register of Deeds rehired him around November 17, 2025. It admits that Walker is married to Susan Walker, the current County Clerk and former CFO, and that he filed discrimination complaints with the Kansas Human Rights Commission in September 2024 and September 2025. It also admits the episode in which Commissioner Milburn-Kee asked for passwords, Walker and a coworker refused, and the coworker called police and was later fired.

Where they diverge

The agreement stops at motive. Walker’s complaint casts the elimination of his job as retaliation for those discrimination complaints and for taking medical leave. The county’s answer reframes the same event as a layoff. The county repeatedly “denies that Plaintiff was ‘terminated,’” admitting only that he was “laid off,” and it states that any action it took “was not retaliatory, and would have occurred based on legitimate, lawful, and independent reasons regardless of Plaintiff’s protected conduct, if any.” The county also denies Walker’s allegations about how he was treated after he was rehired.

The word choice carries legal weight. Walker pairs the retaliation claims with a breach-of-contract count and a Kansas Wage Payment Act claim; by calling the move a layoff and arguing it “substantially performed” and later “modified” his employment agreement, the county contests whether any contract was broken or wages withheld.

Beyond the facts, the county’s answer also raises legal defenses that, if accepted, could dispose of parts of the case before a jury weighs the question of motive. The individual defendants assert qualified immunity against the federal civil-rights (Section 1983) claims. The county claims governmental immunity under the Kansas Tort Claims Act. And the answer asserts that punitive damages cannot be recovered against a municipality. On Shane Walker’s free-speech claims, the county invokes Garcetti v. Ceballos, arguing his speech was made as part of his official duties and is therefore not protected. In all, the answer lists 23 defenses and asks that the defendants be dismissed from the case.

Walker, represented by Wichita attorney Gaye B. Tibbets, has demanded a jury trial. The case is Walker v. Board of County Commissioners of Bourbon County, Kansas, et al., No. 6:26-cv-01057, before U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Crabtree. An answer is one side’s response; the complaint’s allegations and the county’s denials and defenses have not been tested in court. The county’s full answer is posted here.

County Clerk Susan Walker’s routine June 15 request to use the commission room for early voting, election nights and election school touched off a heated exchange over a room that is at the center of a criminal case.

The commission room has doubled as election space for years: voting booths line the courthouse hallway while the room itself is used to check in voters and handle provisional ballots. It was that arrangement, on October 25, 2025, that put Commissioner Mika Milburn-Kee in legal jeopardy. Security-camera footage reviewed by FortScott.biz showed Milburn-Kee seated at the commission table, beside a stack of what the clerk said were unverified provisional ballots, reading a newspaper and waving to a voter while early voting was underway. Walker twice told her election law barred her from the polling area; Milburn-Kee objected that it was her office before moving out about twelve minutes later. In March 2026 the Kansas Attorney General charged her with two misdemeanors, including the polling-place “three-foot rule,” a count that would force her from office if she is convicted. Her jury trial is set to begin July 6, 2026, with a pre-trial conference June 26.

Against that backdrop, Milburn-Kee moved June 15 to deny Walker’s request to use the room, citing its many uses and noting it is the only workspace she has. Walker pushed back saying she has nowhere else, no budget to rent space, and the room is her most secure option. Chairman Samuel Tran disputed that it is “secure,” and the two talked over each other until Walker asked Tran “please don’t be disrespectful to me” and he replied that she was “coming to the table asking for a favor,” and finally telling her to “do what you have to do, madam.” Tran alluded to a past “issue” he didn’t want to “resurface.” Milburn-Kee’s motion failed. Milburn-Kee and Tran were the only ones who voted for it with the rest of the commission against. Commissioner Gregg Motley’s motion to grant Walker’s full request passed with Tran and Milburn-Kee voting against.

The dispute turned on whether the clerk had a workable alternative. Tran proposed moving early voting to the courthouse’s main atrium and using County Appraiser Matt Quick’s office and conference room. Walker rejected that as neither secure nor convenient for her election judges, calling the commission room “the securest” space available; she said she has no other location and no budget to rent one. Milburn-Kee argued the room is needed for its “multi-use purpose,” she said it is her only workspace and that she comes in early and on weekends to set it up, and noted her motion would still lend Walker the county’s Public Works and maintenance crews to move and set up election equipment. Commissioner David Beerbower was skeptical, noting the county would not ask the appraiser or other courthouse officeholders to give up their offices: “I’m baffled.” Commissioner Joe Allen framed the conflict as narrow, “four Mondays, four meetings,” the handful of Monday commission meetings that fall within the voting window, which Walker said she had already worked around so the board could still meet.

The exchange begins around 1:20:43 in the June 15 meeting video.

The County Clerk and Election Officer Susan Walker and Deputy Clerk Amber Page walked FortScott.biz through the election process showing the procedures their office uses to take in, track, and reconcile every ballot cast in a Bourbon County election.

This article shows the order that an election unfolds, starting with building the ballot weeks before Election Day and ending with the canvass after Election Day.

1. Building the ballot

Designing a Bourbon County ballot is a weeks-long process, handled primarily by Page. She uses Clear Ballot’s design software, called ClearDesign. Every piece of information has to be typed in manually: the name of the election, the date, every race, every district, every precinct, which races appear on each precinct’s ballot, which voter groups can vote on each race, and which polling places each precinct’s ballot is available at.

Primary elections add another layer. Every contest has to be mapped to the parties that will appear in it, and every candidate has to be linked to the correct party, so they show up on the right party’s ballot.

Recent redistricting in Bourbon County added significantly to that complexity by creating more precincts and what Page called “precinct parts.” These are sub-units that vote on slightly different combinations of races. The Clerk’s office relies heavily on the district map to determine which precinct or precinct split a given voter belongs to.

Walker said that last year, after an issue discovered with the early voting ballots forced Page to rebuild an entire election configuration, work that would normally have taken several weeks, in hours to have them ready in time for voting day.

The Clerk’s office uses multiple internal and external reviewers to look at the ballot before it goes live, including people outside the office checking for spelling and other errors. Walker said the goal is to keep iterating on the process, “we keep trying to do everything better. We keep doing new processes to make it simpler.”

2. Preparing ballots for the polls

Once the ballot is finalized and printed, every ballot the Clerk’s office sends to a polling place is sealed with a numbered seal. The supervising judge at each polling place is required to keep those seals and return them. If a seal has to be broken, a new seal goes on and is logged. All seals are audited against the equipment they were applied to.

The Clerk’s office also manually counts every ballot before sending it out. On the morning of Election Day, the polling-place staff recount what was delivered and validate the count with the Clerk’s office. At the end of the day, the polling-place staff recount the unused ballots before sending everything back.

3. Voter check-in at the polling place

When a voter walks in to vote, they sign in on a Poll Pad — an electronic check-in tablet running software from a company called KNOWiNK on an iPad. The Poll Pad captures the voter’s signature and identifying information.

If the Poll Pad system goes down, there is a paper backup with the manual pollbook. Voters sign the manual pollbook, and the Clerk’s office later enters those records into the state voter system by hand. Walker described one recent example: on the first day of early voting before the November 2025 election, the Poll Pads malfunctioned, and 29 voters signed the manual pollbook. All 29 were later manually credited with voting in the state system.

If a voter shows up at the wrong polling place, they sign a separate provisional pollbook and fill out additional provisional paperwork. Whether that ballot ends up counting is decided later, at the canvass described below.

4. Mail-in and advance ballots

Some voters cast their ballots by mail rather than in person. Mail-in advance ballots are checked every single day during the advance-voting window. Walker and Page personally retrieve ballots from the mailbox together, count and validate them, log them on a chain-of-custody sheet, and both sign off. The log records how many ballots came in that day but not the voters’ names.

The office tracks who was mailed an advance ballot and who has returned it. If something is wrong — for example, a voter and their spouse have signed each other’s envelopes — the office returns the ballot for correction. Some ballots come back from the post office because of bad addresses. Those, too, are handled manually.

Kansas recently changed the law on advance-ballot returns. Previously, ballots could arrive up to three days after Election Day and still count. Under the new rule, advance ballots must be in by 7 p.m. on Election Day to count. Walker noted the new deadline is currently the subject of litigation, but the Kansas Secretary of State has directed county election officials to plan as though the 7 p.m. deadline is final.

Military voters and overseas voters are tracked separately under federal UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) rules. Walker said Bourbon County typically sees about two UOCAVA ballots a year.

5. Casting the ballot: the scanner

When a voter inserts a filled out ballot into the voting machine at the polling place, they’re using a system called Clear Ballot. At the end of the day, the Clear Ballot machine produces a report listing how many ballots passed through it.

Occasionally there are anomalies. Walker described one example: a voter who was issued a provisional ballot can sometimes tear the ballot off and run it through the regular scanner instead of returning it to the supervising judge. Those anomalies are noted at the end of the day.

6. Reconciling the count

After Election Day, the Clerk’s office reconciles every election against three independent systems:

1. The Poll Pad / ePolls export — the electronic check-in log that captures every voter who signed in on a Poll Pad and, after the election, gets imported into the state’s voter system.
2. ELVIS — short for Election Voter Information System, the Kansas Secretary of State’s statewide voter registration and credit system. ELVIS receives both the automatic Poll Pad import and any manual entries (provisional ballots, manual pollbook entries, etc.).
3. Clear Ballot — the scanner-side count of ballots that physically went through the machines on Election Day.

Walker said all three numbers are expected to tie out. If they don’t, the office investigates. In her experience, when the numbers don’t match, the discrepancy is almost always in advance ballots or provisionals — what she called “the most room for human error.”

As a concrete example, in last year’s election the office processed 36 provisional ballots, of which 12 didn’t count, and 13 advance ballots.

7. The canvass

After the initial reconciliation, a Board of Canvassers — typically the county commissioners themselves, though they can appoint someone else to do it on their behalf, which Walker said has happened on many occasions — meets to go through every provisional ballot and decide which ones count.

Provisional ballots are evaluated against specific statutory standards. Ahead of the canvass, Page goes through each provisional and identifies which statute applies and whether the ballot likely qualifies, in order to speed up the commissioners’ review. The commissioners make the final call. Once the canvass is complete, the results are entered into ELVIS.

Voters interested in verify their own voting history can go to the Kansas Secretary of State website and enter their name and birthdate. That lookup queries ELVIS.

Walker described cases of voters who had voted but couldn’t find a record on the state site. The cause was usually a name-entry error from years earlier — for example, an entry that placed a voter’s first name into the middle-name field, so the lookup didn’t return a match. The Clerk’s office can fix those records once notified. Walker said voters who can’t find their record on the state site should call the office. (620-223-3800 ext. 100)

Each polling place is overseen by a supervising judge — election workers who are on duty only once a year. Walker said training has historically been short for that reason. The Clerk’s office is planning longer training this year to walk supervising judges through specific responsibilities and procedures.

The Clerk’s office was recently awarded an $8,500 election-security grant from the state.

Walker said the office plans to use the grant to:

• Buy five carts to securely hold ballots in transit. Currently, supervising judges — many of whom are elderly volunteers — have to move ballots to the polling places the night before Election Day. With the carts, ballots can stay sealed in the carts and be delivered for them.
• Add additional security cameras. Walker mentioned that the office had previously had a camera missing from the election room; the grant will pay to address that as well.

Walker said the grant had been approved just the week before the May 22 walkthrough.

This article is based on a May 22, 2026 demonstration at the Bourbon County Courthouse. The videos of the walk through of the process are shown below.

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