The Seward County Board of Commissioners and the sheriff were left in a sticky budget situation June 17 as they grappled with an unusual and fast-approaching financial situation, delaying action until June 24 after considerable discussion.
Sheriff Mike Vance’s fund from which three staff members are paid is expected to be nearly depleted after paychecks are issued for the pay period that ended June 20, requiring action before they can be paid for the final pay period of the fiscal year that began June 21.
The one thing commissioners and the sheriff agreed upon is that the employees should be paid.
“No matter what, we have to pay for our people. The concern is whether there are funds available,” said Commissioner Raegan Hain.
The three employees work in regular sheriff’s department roles and community outreach programs like DARE, but are funded by federal payments for the Seward County Drug Interdiction Task Force based on forfeiture activity.
The task force confiscates sometimes large amounts of cash often from people stopped for a traffic infraction who are suspected of being involved in drug trafficking but have not yet been charged with a crime. In exchange for this civil forfeiture, the individuals are released without charges.
The funds are transferred to the federal government’s interdiction program and some is returned to the local teams. The local collaboration includes the Nebraska State Patrol, Milford and Seward police departments, and the Seward County Attorney’s Office, as well as the sheriff’s department, but not all receive direct payments.
The majority of the sheriff’s department staff – including those assigned to the interdiction team – are paid out of tax revenue funds and are not affected. Federal rules prohibit paying interdiction salaries from interdiction funds.
Commissioners and the sheriff will decide on June 24 how they can transfer funds to Fund 2412, called the Sheriff’s Federal Drug Law Enforcement Fund, if no funds have been received from either of those federal departments.
Sheriff awaiting ‘drop’ from U.S. Treasury
Vance said he has been waiting a few years for the U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Justice to remit approximately $5 million he believes the interdiction team is due as their share of the funds taken through the interdiction program.
Vance told commissioners he has been waiting for some time for a “drop” of federal interdiction funds. How much the interdiction team receives for each submission of funds made is not always the same, Vance said in a later interview, and timing is hard to predict.
“We know that some (money) is going to come in,” Sheriff Mike Vance told the commissioners on June 17.
But Commissioner Darrell Zabrocki asked Vance for a plan.
“How did we get here?” Zabrocki said. “We are sweating the end of the budget year and we have got people whose salaries are not going to be met.”
Vance told the commissioners the U.S. Treasury Department person he has been contacting nearly daily told him funds for the Seward County Drug Interdiction Task Force have been “in disbursement” but have not been disbursed.
“Things are different now and things will move now,” Vance said at one point in the commissioners meeting.
Feds ask more of county
But later he told the commissioners the treasury department was asking something of his department.
“There are other things in there that they want from us that I cannot discuss right here,” Vance said in the public commissioners’ meeting. “Some of the things they want from us would move us right along.”
In a later interview, Vance said the treasury department is “making sure we are not a sanctuary county.”
Asked what that might mean, he said if someone is stopped in Seward County for whom a warrant has been issued, they want to know that the sheriff’s department would not let them go.
Vance said his department has always detained people for whom a legal warrant was active and notified the appropriate jurisdiction. Most of the time, the warrants are from other states or local jurisdictions.
“If it is a legal warrant, we are going to notify the legal jurisdiction it is from and they have 10 days to come and get them,” Vance said.
On May 30, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a list of counties they designated as “sanctuary jurisdictions,” which did not include Seward County. The National Association of Counties website posted an update June 1 that said DHS contends such counties “limit cooperation and the sharing of information with federal immigration enforcement.”
The association wrote that there are no federal mandates about what local governments must do related to immigration law.
But Vance has said his issue with the forfeiture funds owed to the Seward County Task Force began before the current administration.
Vance said his task force is due more than $3 million from the U.S. Treasury Department and a little under $2 million from the Department of Justice, but he has not received any disbursements from those sources for some time.
The commissioners “opened” the 2024-25 budget at a recent meeting to amend Vance’s fund to allow a drop that was coming. He said that was only an overtime reimbursement for a little more than $7,000.
He also has received money into his general funds for the task force when the U.S. Marshalls have auctioned off vehicles or other equipment seized through local interdictions. The payments replace the former system in which law enforcement agencies could keep the vehicles.
In a report Vance shared with commissioners last August, he noted that in fiscal year 2023-24, $391,513 was transferred to county funds as “federal task force replacement officer,” to “backfill” funding for Seward County deputies’ salaries. By paying for deputies who patrolled the county in traditional fashion, he said, he was allowing other deputies to be assigned to the task force.
Next steps in gray space
In a later interview, Commission Chair Misty Ahmic said the commissioners did not want to pay for the task force and the deputies, but if no federal funds arrive those three salaries would likely be paid from the general fund.
“Then we need to look at the task force,” Ahmic said.
She acknowledged that the return of forfeiture payments can sometimes take up to five years.
She said the situation is happening in a “gray space” as one fiscal year ends and another begins, making the budget more final as it closes on June 30.
But it is also at the beginning of the gray space counties, cities and school boards operate in from the start of the fiscal year July 1 to late September when Nebraska requires their new budgets to be finalized for taxing purposes.
“Departments operate on assumptions from July 1 till September,” she said.
Commissioners asked multiple questions about what would happen if the federal funds do not come.
Zabrocki asked what it would mean for the task force’s facility northwest of Milford if the federal disbursement does not occur.
“If you don’t get your drop like planned, how are you going to keep the lights on?” Zabrocki said.
Vance responded saying “you always say it is a county building.”
The county has included the structure in its insurance policy.
Vance said in the later interview that commissioners had questioned him about why he had not saved enough in the payroll fund to pay the officers, but his guidelines from the Treasury Department require funds be spent within 36 months.
There was also some tug-of-war when commissioners asked about how many deputies are now on his staff.
Vance said it is the elected sheriff’s role to plan and budget for the staff and did not provide numbers immediately.
Hain said the board has “overall say as to the total amount and the number of deputies you have.”
Later in the meeting, Chief Deputy County Attorney Barbara Armstead asked to see the case references Vance was using on that topic and reiterated that “the county board must set the amount and number of deputies.”
Vance told the commissioners his staff includes two civil warrant sergeants, two court security deputies, one captain, two sergeants and nine deputies on patrol, as well as two civilian staff members and two part-time positions. He has one unfilled position at this time. Counting his own role, 22 positions.
Vance also said at one point that he would work with the county attorney to file a writ of mandamus against the board, seeking a court’s order for a governing board to carry out their duties if the funding issue is not resolved.
“We have done everything we can through asset forfeiture to pay for other things so the county doesn’t have to,” Vance said. “I could stop all that but I hope not to so I can help the taxpayers.”
Spending, options
considered
Vance said the task force had paid out $1.6 million over the last two years for things that otherwise would have come from the department’s general fund, including equipment and cars.
Vance and Capt. Brad Melby, who attended the meeting with Vance, said the department has worked to save taxpayer funds, citing delays in replacing uniforms and finding less expensive vehicle maintenance.
Ahmic said, “as an elected official, that is sort of what you are elected to do.”
Hain also questioned the department’s spending.
“I think there was potentially some spending that possibly should not have happened,” she said. “I will always say that patrol of the county and citizen safety should be first and foremost priority over interdiction.”
Later in the meeting Ahmic asked commissioners if they wanted to consider paying the department’s salaries out of the county’s general fund.
“It’s not what was approved,” Hain said, “and I would not recommend that we pay for the salaries for those officers (from that fund) at this time.”
Commissioner Ken Schmieding said he would like to give the sheriff’s department more time to see if the funds are disbursed.
Though there was no vote, Ahmic polled Commissioners Ken Schmieding, Zabrocki and Hain, and determined they would wait until June 24 to make a decision. Commissioner Scott Pekarek was absent.
The report Vance shared with the board in August 2024, said the county had received $486,096 from the U.S. Treasury Department and nearly $14,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024.
