Commissioner Darrell Zabrocki is crossing the 2024-25 Seward County Sheriff’s Office inventory off his to-do list.
But for an I Phone issued in 2021, all items on the department’s inventory have been accounted for.
“I did not find anything here that I thought was nefarious or out of order,” Zabrocki told the county commissioners July 28.
Zabrocki took on the assignment after in-house and consultant-run inventories were incomplete and questions had been raised about the eligibility of purchases funded by Seward County Drug Interdiction Task Force revenues.
The interdiction program confiscates sometimes large amounts of cash from persons suspected of drug trafficking who are often contacted on traffic stops but have not yet been charged with a crime. In exchange for this civil forfeiture, the individuals are released without charges and the county submits the funds to the federal government with the expectation that some of those funds will be returned to the county for specific uses.
Zabrocki asked the department to reformat inventory reports to sort items by the staff member they were assigned to on the county’s Zuercher database, which is also used for E911, jail management and other departmental functions.
Then he worked through the inventory one deputy at a time, meeting with them during their regular shifts rather than incurring overtime.
“It was a little eye-opening to see who is carrying what,” Zabrocki said at the commissioners’ July 30 meeting. “There will be some other recommendations coming forward for some of that, too.”
Over the nearly three months it took to meet with staff, he found a number of broken or worn items that were no longer in use but remained on the department’s inventory. The department is now using the county’s surplus procedures to remove them from the books.
Among questions raised last fall was the location of four leased Flock automated license plate readers (ALPR) that were originally intended to be used in Seward but were opposed by city officials due to privacy concerns. The cameras were to let Seward County contribute to a national database of traffic flow information and then have access to information generated in metropolitan areas for law enforcement purposes.
The cameras, Zabrocki said, are used in Saline County, which is part of the collaborative efforts around the Seward County Drug Interdiction Task Force.
The absence of the cameras on last year’s inventory was one of the reasons commissioners withheld approval for the sheriff’s annual Equitable Sharing Agreement and Certification (ESAC) report to the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments.
Commissioners said the equipment could be used in another location but departmental property must be tracked. That also helps the Seward County Commissioners and Seward County Sheriff’s Office explain to local and federal officials how expenditures made from forfeiture programs are supporting drug interdiction work.
Now that the inventory has been updated and broken or worn items are being removed from storage and inventory records, the 2025-26 annual audit – which will begin soon – should be easier, Zabrocki said.
The task force’s annual ESAC report is due to the federal offices by the end of August.
