Noting the complexity involved in reopening the last fiscal year’s budget, Seward County Commissioners on June 30 denied Sheriff Mike Vance’s request that the board pay for $9,000 in 2025 salaries his department reimbursed to the U.S. Department of Treasury.
Commission Chair Misty Ahmic said in a July 1 interview the steps that would be involved to open last year’s budget are complex and the commissioners had taken action last year to make the sheriff’s budget “whole” after having to repay a portion of the Seward County Drug Interdiction Task Force funds inappropriately allocated for departmental salaries.
“When we started having these conversations it was last year at this time,” Ahmic said.
Vance said commissioners voted to move funds to cover those salaries last September after the salaries had been paid in July and August from the federal forfeiture funds his department received. The county’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.
“I was asking to take money left in the budget to pay back that $9,000,” Vance said in a later interview. He would place the general fund allocation in the department’s asset forfeiture fund.
He said his department returned $21,000 in allocated but unspent budget dollars to the county’s general fund as the fiscal year ended June 30.
Vance said on July 1 his department has repaid the Department of Treasury the funds it was required to pay and is again in compliance with the asset seizure program. The task force submits cash and assets seized in the interdiction program and the Departments of Treasury and Justice then returns portions of the assets seized to the county and other law enforcement departments involved, which can be spent on specific expenses related mostly to drug trafficking or school resource officer programs.
The county received one reimbursement of $2,000 last week, Vance said, and had also received other funds in recent months.
In other action June 30, the commissioners:
• Authorized acceptance of the reimbursement-based Juvenile Services Grant for juvenile diversion and attendance support from the Nebraska Crime Commission.
• Renewed an agreement with the Nebraska Department of Transportation for fiscal year 2027 federal aid funds for public transit programs.
• Renewed its interlocal agreement for Adult Drug Court between Seward and York counties.
• Recognized Crystal Kirby of Bee as veteran of the month.
• Tabled discussion of a budget hearing for the E911 Department.
