BY KEITH LIPPOLDT
klippoldt@gbtribune.com
At last week’s Barton County Commissioners meeting, Central Kansas Community Corrections (CKCC) Director Brooke Haulmark addressed the Commissioners and asked for their support in the form of a letter for increased funding for her underfunded department.
The Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) provides grants to county departments to fund community corrections. These grants help counties supervise and support people who have been convicted of felonies.
Haulmark provided information to the commission that proved her department is in need of more money to increase staff size to make the workload more achievable. She said that the 20th Judicial District is the fifth largest in the state with over 4,000 square miles of coverage area, with currently 237 active clients, but is No. 28 of 31 districts in funding. She also stated the department is currently 288 staffing hours short each month.
After receiving this information, the Commissioners penned a letter that was sent to KDOC asking for a review of the funding crisis.
“I did hear yesterday (Monday) from Deputy Secretary Megan Milner and she is going to speak to Secretary Jeff Zmuda today,” Haulmark told the Commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting. “They are working on the funding allocation methodology, which I knew. I’m aware that they’re working on that. I explained that, based on our data, the staffing, that the shortage that we’ve been able to prove with our data, with our work, of how short we are and how that impacts our communities that we serve.”
Commissioner Donna Zimmerman was pleased they acknowledged Haulmark so quickly.
“I’m glad they reached out to you. Do you feel like they were surprised or they were going to review the numbers some more,” Zimmerman asked.
“I do believe they’re going to review the numbers some more,” Haulmark said. “I don’t know that they’re necessarily surprised. We have partnered with them in other endeavors. There’s a parole officer that comes to our office once a week to see clients in the area. So, I know that they are aware that we are good partners to work with. I think they are looking at how to address the disparity across the state. Thank you for the letter that you wrote. Our staff were very appreciative of the support.”
Commission Chair Tricia Schlessiger appreciated Haulmark asking for additional support from the Commissioners.
“I feel like you guys are given a very small pool of money to do everything you guys are required to do,” Schlessiger said. “It’s like they set the requirements, and they’re way up here, and then they’re going to give you this little bit of money to do all these things. It doesn’t seem like it’s enough to do the job you guys want to do.”
Haulmark was actually on Tuesday’s agenda to ask the Commissioners for $807,892.86 to fund the fiscal year 2026 budget. This funding is to support six positions as well as operational and programming costs.
“They are funding us exactly as they did this past year, with $807,892.86,” she said. “Of that number, $27,720.50 has to be spent towards behavioral health funding. Those include things like transportation to treatment, cost of substance abuse, mental health or sex treatment assessments and also peer support services.
“$715,808.51 is for the personnel cost to cover the director, two administrative assistants and four ISOs and the remaining $64,363 is for operational expense, such as our drug and alcohol testing supplies, vehicle insurance, maintenance, cell phone, our fuel for traveling the 4,000 miles that we cover and our landline, etc.”
Zimmerman made the motion to approve the KDOC funding for fiscal year 2026. Duane Reif seconded and the motion passed 4-0. Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson was absent.
Here is a brief look at what the Barton County Commissioners did Tuesday morning:
• Employee Engagement Committee President Judith Castro announced that Barton County Sheriff Detective Sgt. Adam Hales was nominated for, and received, the Employee Recognition Award for the first quarter of 2025.
“He was nominated by Lieutenant Payton, and he stated that Detective Sergeant Hales is always working on something,” Castro said. “He’s worked very hard to keep himself and his other two detectives aware and on top of all the various ongoing reports on the sheriff’s office. He has to determine what cases need further information, follow-ups and assisting in determining when a case is complete enough to send to the county attorney’s office for prosecution. His position is a very thankless job, and his position never really has a completion to it.”
• Information Technology Director Dereck Hollingshead went before the Commissioners for approval of Crowdstrike Endpoint Protection - a software product installed on all 280 County owned computers and servers. This antivirus protection renews for $21,844.95.
Commissioner Duane Reif made the motion to approve the renewal and purchase through SHI. It was seconded by Commissioner Barb Esfeld and passed 4-0.
• Hollingshead also sought approval for renewal of Wasabi Cloud Storage. The request for proposals detailed a minimum storage capacity of 75TB with scalable options for future expansion, security features, disaster recovery policies and competitive pricing with no hidden costs.
The cost of the storage came to $6,113.07, also from SHI. Commissioner Donna Zimmerman made the motion for approval that was seconded by Reif. The motion carried 4-0.
• Emergency Risk Manager Sean Kelly had visited with the Commissioners at an earlier meeting to request approval to purchase a full-size SUV in an effort to bolster the department’s preparedness and response efforts.
“It only took about a day for the Great Bend Police Department to let us know that they were getting rid of a 2017 Tahoe Police Pursuit Vehicle,” Kelly said. “The benefit of it is, it was a supervisor vehicle. It’s a command vehicle. So it’s already upfitted with the needs. I’ve already got the radios that need to go into it. So it’s a good set up, and it’s a low cost investment compared to buying new and having to upfit it. Plus, it’s a lower cost investment to increase our ability to help our local responses.”
Reif moved to approve the purchase of the 2017 Tahoe from the GBPD for $20,000. Esfeld seconded and the motion carried 4-0.
• County Clerk Bev Schmeidler presented the Commissioners the Request for Approval of Added, Abated, Escaped, Refunded Taxes in the amount of $64,688.98.
“The AAES that were presented to our office by the appraiser’s office,” Schmeidler said. “It’s 18 records, total tax difference, $64,686.98, and they were personal property and real estate. I think most of them were for the payment under protest hearings and caused the changes.”
Esfeld made the motion for approval. It was seconded by Reif and carried 4-0.
