Seward County Sheriff Mike Vance asked the Seward County Board of Commissioners Aug. 19 to sign off on a report due to the U.S. Departments of Treasury and Justice by the end of the month, but was asked to provide further information before that happens.
Money seized by the Seward County Drug Interdiction program is sent to the two departments and the Seward County Sheriff’s office and Seward County Attorney’s office are among the offices participating in the program that receive funds back.
To remain compliant with program rules, the annual Equitable Sharing Agreement Certification (ESAC) report must be signed by Vance and the chair of the board of commissioners and turned in within 60 days of the close of the fiscal year, which ended June 30.
But commissioners asked Vance to provide more financial data from May 30 and prior before they sign off on the report.
County Attorney Wendy Elston told the board when presenting her own department’s ESAC that if the report is not turned in, a program becomes noncompliant. But it can regain compliant status by turning a report in within the next 12 months.
Vance said if the report is not completed, the asset forfeiture program may not be able to operate because funds would not be disbursed to his department.
Commissioner Raegan Hain first suggested the report be delayed until February, but when that motion died for lack of a second, Darrell Zabrocki, who was leading the meeting in Chair Misty Ahmic’s absence, suggested a window of up to 60 days.
The board voted 3-1 to hold the signature for up to 60 days, with Zabrocki, Hain and Ken Schmieding voting in favor and Scott Pekarek opposing the move.
In discussions with Vance in the meeting, both Hain and Zabrocki referenced a letter that was not shared in public.
“There is also additional information out there,” Hain said. “I don’t think that it is in the best interest of the board to sign this document.”
She said the Seward department was listed with a “do not spend” status and said they need to clear up any issue there before commissioners sign the 2024-25 report, but did not detail any questions raised.
Hain said signing the report requires the board to be certain funds have been spent in line with Equitable Sharing guidelines.
“But we have information that says otherwise,” Hain said.
She said they should take the time between now and the end of September when the county’s budget has to be finalized to address it.
In a later interview, Zabrocki said commissioners were referencing a May-dated Department of Treasury letter that put a “spending hold” on the sheriff’s department pending information related to how school resource officer funding was used over a period of a few years.
He said the department is holding a $729,000 disbursement and the sheriff’s department could have to pay back around $33,000 more if that is not clarified.
Zabrocki said, however, that Department of Justice funds could come in any time.
“To his credit, he has seized a great deal of money on the interstate,” Zabrocki said of Vance. “It’s a pretty complicated mess to be honest.”
Hain said in a later interview that the situation is challenging and the board needs more information, but she declined to talk specifically about the letter mentioned.
Also in a later interview, Vance said there was some confusion in the questions at the meeting. He is planning to be back before the commissioners on Aug. 26 and hopes to have the annual report signed by the original Aug. 30 deadline.
But during the commissioners’ meeting Zabrocki said he has concerns about the interdiction program, which in his opinion is “what I call law enforcement for profit.”
“If we are relying on asset forfeiture to run your department, then we are doing this ass backwards. We should not rely on asset forfeiture money,” he said.
Pekarek said his concern was for the departmental budget when some of the funding for utilities at the sheriff’s department building near Milford are paid with asset forfeiture funds, as well as fuel for cars.
In the last weeks of the 2024-25 fiscal year, Vance has said he is expecting up to $5 million in disbursements from the two federal departments based on seizures over recent years.
Vance brought to the commissioners’ meeting a written report outlining the interdiction program’s accomplishments, which he distributed at the end of the discussion.
That report outlines how Vance created the program in 2019 and campaigned for sheriff in the 2020 election saying he would have the program restored. According to past news reports, the program was begun before Vance ran for sheriff and was halted by former Sheriff Joe Yocum in May 2019, though the two had different explanations for the change.
Vance is now in his second term of office.
The report said the “impact the Seward County Federal Task Force has had on organized crime is to the tune of $65,497,579.00.”
The group’s highway seizures have included cash, marijuana, methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, psilocybin, THC oil, THC vape pens, THC wax, firearms, stolen vehicles and two missing and endangered juveniles.
Vance’s report said the program has been recognized annually for excellence by the National Criminal Law Enforcement Association on four occasions and once by Homeland Security. Individual team members have also received awards.
It also said the department has been notified that it will be recognized again by the NCLEA in September.
The report credited the sheriff’s department with providing more than $8.1 million for the departmental purposes reported in the ESAC report, which would otherwise have come out of its general budget.
At the close of the county commission’s agenda item, Vance and Zabrocki exchanged words with Vance saying he is owed an apology and Zabrocki saying the issue is business, not personal.
Vance also told the commission he would see them in court, before distributing the report he had brought, saying he hoped they would read it.
The ESAC annual report awaiting the board’s signature is an annual certification showing that the Seward County Sheriff’s Office received $485,553 from the Justice Department in Equitable Sharing funds the fiscal year that ended this past June 30 and spent $447,593 from those funds.
That left a balance of $61,616 when combined with the department’s beginning balance.
The report also shows that the sheriff’s office received $82,501 in Equitable Sharing funds from the Treasury Department but started with a balance of $386,052. Those sums combined allowed expenditures of $445,246 leaving a balance of $23,307.
The largest expenditures from those two funds were for 1) law enforcement equipment, $312,500 from the Justice Department, 2) salaries for Drug Abuse Resistance Education/School Resource Officers, $255,903, and 3) overtime payments, $114,427, with the last two being from Treasury Department funds.
Vance’s report also showed repayment income of $31,600 for the Rural Apprehension Program.
Elston also presented her department’s report to the board of commissioners.
Her report showed receipt of $7,318 from the Justice Department last fiscal year, which was added to a beginning balance of $160,329, from which $58,329 was spent for federal task force replacement officer salary.
The county attorney reported receipt of $326 from the Treasury Department for law enforcement awards and memorials.
