Conversations about county employee reimbursement claims for cell phone usage have spurred the Seward County Commissioners to revisit the county’s cell phone policy and procedures.
Seward County Commission Chair Misty Ahmic said she will lead an audit of cell phones provided to staff members by the county and reimbursement claims made by county employees who use their own cell phones for county business.
At the Seward County Commissioners meeting May 6, Commissioner Raegan Hain said she had become aware of a situation in which personal cell phone costs were paid by the county in a way that may not comply with the county’s cell phone policy.
Current policy allows department heads to be issued a county-owned cell phone or a $35 monthly stipend toward their personal phone plan. Each county department includes phone expenses in their departmental budgets and oversees any claims made for phone expenses.
“We don’t have a policy for paying for personal phone bills,” Hain said after the meeting.
Ahmic said in a later interview that the questions raised during monthly preparation and review of claims for board approval centered on whether the county’s current policy is being followed.
But she also wonders if the county might have some cost savings if cell phones were a centralized purchase across all departments, and her audit of the situation will also include that consideration.
At this point, she said, there is not a firm count of how many phones the county is paying for across the departments. Depending upon the number, the county might be able to get a less expensive group rate from the phone service provider.
Also on May 6, commissioners considered a recommendation on the county’s starting wages for the 2025-26 fiscal year, but opted to continue discussion on May 13 when they might have additional information.
Roxanne Knutson, county human resources director, and Tiffany Allen, assistant human resources director, presented information on starting wages and benefits from the recent Nebraska Association of County Officials study.
They have prepared a schedule of starting wages for county positions that the county could enact effective July 1.
But commissioners questioned whether they should enact new starting wages without also evaluating wage schedules for current employees.
Knutson said NACO will not have another general wage analysis for three years.
She told commissioners she appreciated the NACO starting wage data.
“I am excited to see how it goes. Talking to other counties is a lot of work but was very interesting to see how other counties do wage work,” Knutson said. “I feel really confident in what we do here.”
Commissioner Darrell Zabrocki said he appreciated the work on the schedule, but said the county should be wary of how starting wage changes might be viewed by current staff.
NACO was to have a budget workshop for counties on May 8, so commissioners wanted to revisit the salary topic after that.
Knutson said the HR staff is trying to get the pay schedule to the point where starting and retained employee pay levels do not have “massive changes” every three years when they are reviewed.
Another business item at the May 6 meeting involved board action to open the Seward County Sheriff’s Drug Fund 2412 and Drug Fund 2414 to increase the budgeted amounts by $750,000, which allows the county to accept funds from the drug interdiction program that were not included in the estimated total for this fiscal year.
Drug interdiction funds seized here are turned over to federal agencies and any portion owed to the Seward County Sheriff’s Department is allocated by those agencies.
They noted the county may not receive exactly $750,000, but having budgeted revenue to accommodate all revenue is a common process to comply with county budgeting, revenue and expense rules.
In other action the commissioners:
• Met in executive session to discuss personnel for one hour, 49 minutes.
• Discussed but deferred action on possible online mental health service companies to work with inmates at the Seward County Detention Center, citing the legislature’s continuing budget work and possible cap on county expenses.
• Approved two short form plats for the Green Leaf Addition in Township 11 North and ECHO Addition in Township 9 North, both owned by Green Leaf Land & Cattle Company, as well as a short form plat for J&N/HSELING Addition in Township 10 North, owned by Rodney and Victoria Woebbecke, and a short form plat for Brandon Addition, owned by Brett Borchers and Eric Tonniges in Township 11 North.
