Sheriff Mike Vance added some urgency to the Seward County Board of Commissioners efforts to clarify a “path forward” Sept. 2 when he shared that the sheriff’s office has six months to regain its compliance with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Vance told commissioners he received Justice Department notice over the Labor Day weekend that the Seward County department is out of compliance because it did not file the Equitable Sharing Agreement and Certification (ESAC) by the end of August. If his department does not regain Justice Department compliance status within six months, it could take up to three years to re-establish the relationship and receive payments due.
The annual ESAC is submitted jointly to the Justice and U.S. Treasury Departments annually and has to be signed by both the sheriff and the chair of the county board. The board had been told previously the department has up to a year to regain compliance by submitting the report to the federal programs but recently learned that the sheriff’s office had been designated a “do not spend” department in 2024 when the justice department deemed some expenditures impermissible.
County Board Chair Misty Ahmic on Aug. 26 assigned Vance and commissioners Raegan Hain and Scott Pekarek to work on a plan for the department to move forward so the commissioners could sign the report.
Hain asked the sheriff for copies of documents submitted to and received by the Department of Justice as part of this review, and both Vance and Pekarek have expressed frustration with the lack of response they have gotten from inquiries to the Justice Department.
Pekarek said they hope to have a conference call with the Department of Justice, and Hain brought a list of documents needed, including documents submitted to and received from the Department of Treasury since Jan. 1, 2024.
Pekarek said on Aug. 26, the Justice Department told him they could not release documents to him because a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request had been submitted.
Chief Deputy County Attorney Barbara Armstead, who works with the county board, said at the Sept. 2 meeting that she had filed the FOIA request about a month ago to ensure the county was getting all the documentation available. She recently received acknowledgement of the request and the Department of Treasury indicated their work would take some time.
“It was not a secret,” Armstead said. “I was concerned the county was in jeopardy. We were not getting information.”
Ahmic asked Commissioners Darrell Zabrocki and Pekarek, Vance and someone else from his office to create a policy for how the forfeiture funds are used in the future, which commissioners say is needed to sign the ESAC report. County expenditures from all departments are paid through the county clerk’s office and approved by the board.
Both Hain and Vance said comments made in recent meetings have been offensive or hurtful to them individually, and Vance said it is counterproductive for him and Hain to work together on this, asking that someone else be assigned.
At one point Hain told Vance that she had recorded their recent meeting with Pekarek, after which Pekarek asked her not to do that in the future.
In a written letter Vance read to the commissioners as they began discussion of his budget for 2025-26, he said Hain should no longer contact members of his staff with questions or document requests.
He also asked Ahmic to reassign Pekarek to Hain’s role as liaison to the detention center.
Ahmic said Vance had the right to make the request but also said Hain had been a strong advocate for the detention center.
In a later interview, Ahmic said Hain will continue as the board’s liaison to the detention center.
Reading from his letter, Vance told commissioners he understood their job in overseeing taxpayers’ money and setting budgets.
“But it is not to run my department within as some of the board members seem to think it is,” he said.
He noted that he was elected by a majority of the county voters, while the commissioners were elected by the majority of their individual districts.
“To be honest, the machinations by some members of the board feel like harassment,” he said. “During my six and a half years plus as the sheriff, the task force I meticulously created seized nearly $19 million in drug-related currency, of which $10 million has been received into our asset forfeiture accounts.”
The balance still owed the department is nearly $8 million, he said.
After the March 2024 guide on permissible uses of asset forfeiture funds was received, Vance said his staff found some allocations were no longer permissible.
“Changes were made, but I learned that the feds had retroactively figured an amount back to our last federal audit and advised that my office would have to pay back money used to pay salaries, which they took out of the money waiting for distribution to my office from our treasury account,” Vance said.
The same thing happened with the Rural Apprehension Program, which funded drug investigations in Seward, Saline, York, Fillmore and Clay counties. Vance said it was permissible and paid out of asset forfeiture funds from 2012 until he withdrew from the program.
However, the department’s funds from the Justice Department were not impacted “until the board of commissioners refused to sign the ESAC report.”
He said the ESAC is “an agreement of funds both received and spent, whether or not they (commissioners) agreed with how the money was spent.”
Vance also said the hiring of an outside company to audit the asset forfeiture accounts was a waste of taxpayers’ money and that no illegal or unethical practices were found.
“I have been telling other commissioners for months that the decision to have my office audited was personal,” he said.
He said some commissioners want to make the sheriff’s department “look bad and in disarray” after his decision to retire at the end of his current term in 2026 and his public endorsement of a person on his staff for the role.
Vance expressed frustration with recent bickering between him and the commissioners over his budget, saying some of the cuts recently discussed – including deputies, overtime, utilities and vehicle-related items – were unrealistic.
“Pass whatever budget you want today, and the board will be accountable to the taxpayers,” Vance said.
However, Vance and his staff worked through the line-item budget with the commissioners Sept. 2, as the commissioners have done with other departments.
The number of sworn officers approved by the board at 18 was discussed again.
Ahmic closed the meeting saying the commissioners and the sheriff’s office all work on behalf of Seward County.
In a later interview she noted the number of sheriff’s department staff and others who attended the Sept. 2 meeting.
“The reality is that we all do care and we are all there to serve Seward County, and I think we just need to remember that moving forward,” Ahmic said. “We don’t always have to be best friends, but we have to work together.”
