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[5:52] » Good morning everyone. Welcome to the uh Ellis County Commission meeting

[5:57] September 1st of 2026. If we can stand for the pledge of allegiance.

[6:05] I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it

[6:11] stands one nation under God [clears throat] indivisible with liberty

[6:16] and justice for all.

[6:28] » Okay, Bobby, if you could call roll, please. Commissioner Nathan Ler

[6:32] » here. >> Chair Neil Younger

[6:33] » present. >> Commissioner Michael Burgess

[6:35] » here. >> We have a quorum.

[6:38] » Order business stays the same.

[6:43] Um, everyone have a chance to look at the August 17th meeting and 18th.

[6:51] » Yes. Minutes look good. >> Okay.

[6:54] » How about the consent agenda? I'll move to approve consent agenda

[7:00] items A through G. >> Second.

[7:03] » Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I.

[7:07] » I. Motion to approve. All right. Anyone from the audience that

[7:13] would like to speak? That's not on the No.

[7:22] All right. Introduction of new um employees. Jennifer,

[7:30] » good morning. >> You're in the whole room.

[7:32] » Jennifer Taylor, Ellis County HR. And yes, as you can see, we have quite a few

[7:38] new employees here with us. Our departments have been very busy uh

[7:42] filling the positions that we have. And so I will let most departments introduce

[7:47] their employees and I will have our dispatchers come up. their uh

[7:52] supervisors weren't able to be here this morning covering for shifts, but I have

[7:57] Lesie Watson and Caitlyn Cisneros. They are they joined us yesterday actually,

[8:02] so today is day two and we welcome them to the communication center.

[8:06] » Welcome.

[8:13] » Morning commissioners county public works director. Beside me is Daniel

[8:16] Geber. You may recall he was here about nine months ago in the same spot. He was

[8:22] with our bridge crew before. Left for a short time and came back and he's going

[8:25] to be operating a territory for us the blade. So we're happy to have him back.

[8:30] » Okay. Welcome back.

[8:38] » Denita Schrader, EMS director. I have Channing Ratherford with us today. Um he

[8:42] is going to fulfill a part-time EMT position with us. He's been an EMT for

[8:47] what two years now. >> Good deal. Welcome.

[8:51] » Welcome.

[8:56] » Morning commissioners and everyone. We have here Damian. Um I would not want to

[9:01] pronounce his name. [laughter] He's a bit tricky. So you can have you can call

[9:05] him Damian. He's the new IT support member that we have in IT. Um and yeah,

[9:10] so we're just happy to have him. Okay. Very good. Welcome.

[9:18] Good morning, commissioners. Dustin Bar and Sheriff's Office. I have uh one of

[9:23] our new hires with me today, Ty Losi. He started on our day shift last week. Uh

[9:28] [clears throat] we also have Mason Emerson and Mark Bernett. They are on

[9:31] the night shift, so they are probably at home sleeping right now. So, okay, good.

[9:35] Well, welcome. >> Welcome.

[9:49] Okay. Ellis County uh breastfeeding coalition. An introduction to the uh

[9:54] Cottonwood 4 extension agent. Monique.

[10:04] » Good morning. Monique Kerner, Cottonwood Extension District and Ellis County

[10:08] Breastfeeding Coalition. So, um, we brought a few of our members of the

[10:14] coalition with us. So, um, I just want to introduce Robin Xiha, Jessica Sy,

[10:21] and Christina Morales from the health department. Um, Jess is from Hayes Med

[10:27] and uh, Robin's a little league leader and works for United Healthcare and is

[10:31] part of our coalition. So, uh, I just put together a quick presentation. Um,

[10:37] Commissioner Burgess had asked us to come talk a little bit more about a

[10:41] designation we just recently received in August of 2026. So, um, back in 2015,

[10:49] our coalition was formed and Hayes was actually a pilot for the original

[10:55] certification for communities supporting breastfeeding. Um, so that was in 2015

[11:01] as well. uh when we started our coalition. So if you want to just kind

[11:06] of page through some more things will pop up. So there you can see uh that we

[11:10] started um we the community supporting um breastfeeding was uh we had to meet

[11:19] at least quarterly. We we meet monthly. Um we're listed on the Kansas

[11:24] Breastfeeding Coalition directory. Um we have uh one coalition leader um myself

[11:31] and actually several of us are part of the the KBC. Um we've like I said we've

[11:37] met for several years um to earn the plus designation. We had to become more

[11:43] active on social media. So if anybody wants to go out and check out the Ellis

[11:47] County Breastfeeding Coalition Facebook page, we post there on a regular basis.

[11:53] um we have active members from at least three sectors uh listed on the criteria.

[11:59] So those would be things like your hospital, your health department, um you

[12:04] know, maybe some businesses, new moms, things like that. Um and then uh we

[12:10] connect with other local or regional coalitions. Um Robin and I are both on

[12:15] the Central Kansas Breastfeeding Coalition, so we do network quite a bit

[12:20] with others around us. Um and then I'll let um Robin take the next part. She's

[12:25] going to talk about Lichi League and our peer support that we have here in Ellis

[12:30] County.

[12:33] Um, as she said, I'm Robin Chiha and I'm one of the four accredited Lae League

[12:38] leaders um, here with the Western Kansas uh, Lae League and Mon'nique and I were

[12:45] just talking right before the meeting and we've been accredited now I think

[12:49] this is 27 years that we have been helping moms mother to mother. U, we

[12:55] offer monthly meetings and I don't know if you've seen our little flyers around.

[12:59] Uh we keep those at the doctor's offices. [clears throat] The hospital

[13:03] hands them out. Uh we offer monthly uh support group meetings, uh telephone

[13:10] help. It's all free um to moms if they're just needing some education,

[13:15] support, that kind of thing. And we have four leaders uh here with our group. Two

[13:20] of them couldn't be here today. um

[13:26] » and just like the virtual groups. >> Yes, we yeah, we've had some virtual

[13:31] meetings and then sometimes we don't have attendees, but we would like to get

[13:36] that going again as well. I think that's of value. Um

[13:41] we meet at the library, but we are looking at changing the location.

[13:45] » September. >> Okay.

[13:48] » Yeah, I think that will be good. They're located close to the hospital. So,

[13:58] » right. And Jess's gonna talk about baby friendly.

[14:02] » Um part of the designation is that um you have a hospital that is high five

[14:06] for mom and baby or a baby friendly designated hospital. Um Haste Meadow was

[14:10] designated in 2021 with our uh first um uh dedication for that. And um so

[14:18] definitely a huge uh process improvement process um that we go through. It

[14:24] involves implementing 10 steps um that pretty much hold you accountable. Lots

[14:28] of data collection with our patient um support and um our nurses documentation,

[14:33] nurses education, education in the prenatal clinic as well. So um it has

[14:39] been a great thing to be um involved in that. I think they said there's around

[14:43] on the website it says around 600 hospitals in the United States that are

[14:47] baby friendly designated. So, it is pretty um prestigious. I think Kansas

[14:51] kind of goes back and forth um probably between um six to 10 hospitals in the

[14:57] state that have the designation. Um some places decide to not renew their

[15:01] designation, but we just recently renewed ours um this last year. So, we

[15:05] had to go through the accreditation process again um in May. So

[15:11] um and then also part of it I don't the milk bank.

[15:14] » Y >> the milk bank is um a a project that we

[15:20] work with the Ellis County breastfeeding coalition with. Um they helped us get

[15:24] our initial freezer that we store the milk in. It's a place where moms can

[15:28] donate ex excess um breast milk that they have and we are kind of a middleman

[15:34] between the milk bank in Denver, Colorado where they um do the

[15:39] pasteurization process um for the milk. So we collect it from the moms. They can

[15:44] just drop it off at the front door of the hospital. We pick it up, put it in

[15:47] our freezer until it's time to ship it when the FedEx people come and then um

[15:51] it gets shipped out to Colorado and they go um through the pro pasteurization

[15:56] process out there. We recently started um having um pasteurized donor human

[16:03] milk available to our patients at the hospital. Um and that we order our milk

[16:07] then from Denver to come um to be delivered to the hospital to have it

[16:12] available then for our patients. So that's been a great project to see all

[16:16] the way through. >> Absolutely.

[16:19] » I always joke with Jess that that was our easy button with the hospital

[16:23] becoming baby friendly because they [clears throat] did all the work and the

[16:27] coalition didn't have to do that. She I don't think she would agree with me that

[16:31] that was our easy button. But um we [clears throat] do really appreciate

[16:34] having a baby friendly hospital in our community. Having that support for

[16:38] breastfeeding mothers and getting them off to a good start is is huge for our

[16:43] community. So where the work work really had to happen was in the public spaces

[16:49] realm. So we had around 20 businesses that have become breastfeeding welcome

[16:54] here. So um it's nothing like over the top that they have to do. they just um

[16:59] put a little sticker in their window and um mostly just educate their employees

[17:05] that breastfeeding is legal in the state of Kansas. Anywhere a mother has the

[17:09] right to be, she can breastfeed her child. And so, uh that's where the work

[17:14] began really. Uh we had around 20 businesses that originally signed up and

[17:19] so we pretty much had to double that um to about 43 or so in order to earn this

[17:26] designation. We ended up with 45. Um, one of the leaders and I went up and

[17:31] down Main Street into a couple of shopping complexes and we were really

[17:36] pleased with the reception that we got. Um, everybody was on board with it and

[17:42] just thinks that it's a really good initiative to support families in our

[17:47] community. Um, and then workplaces. So, there's a business case for

[17:52] breastfeeding award that can go to businesses that support their

[17:56] breastfeeding employees. And we have 10 businesses. We had around um seven or

[18:04] eight, I think, when we first began in 2015, and we've added a few more along

[18:09] the way. And uh recently, Ellis County was the last one to achieve that

[18:14] designation for our community. So, Jennifer is going to talk about that

[18:17] process. Um, and then in child care, we had to have at least 20 providers

[18:23] complete uh a KBC or cassedo breastfeeding course. So, uh, that was

[18:30] also an easy button for us. We have a lot of um,

[18:35] childcare providers that have gone through that. And then we had to have at

[18:39] least one child care program designated as a breastfeeding friendly child care

[18:45] provider. So, um, and that is at Early Childhood Connections. Their Early Head

[18:51] Start Child Care program is our breastfeeding friendly child care.

[18:56] Um, okay, next slide. So, uh, we've kind of already talked about one of those.

[19:02] Uh, you had to have at least one of these criteria. We were lucky enough to

[19:07] add two of these. So, um, I'll invite Jennifer up to talk about the Ellis

[19:13] County initiatives and then Jess has already talked about the milk depot.

[19:19] [clears throat] So, I am super excited for this group and everything they've

[19:22] accomplished, but I'm also super excited to be here to explain what we as Ellis

[19:28] County have been able to contribute to the mix. And so it was kind of a story

[19:34] about turning a negative into a positive as we were able to take the flood that

[19:41] happened here in our administrative building and kind of flip that and

[19:44] rebuild with our employees at the forefront of our mind. And what I mean

[19:49] by that is not only did we rebuild the entire basement, but we were able to

[19:55] create a um dedicated private lactation space because coming back, and I know

[20:02] they've kind of touched on this, but coming back from um maternity leave or

[20:07] having a baby is a huge transition. And so being able to support our employees

[20:12] by having that space if they choose the route that route to go is one of the top

[20:17] um top things that we could do at that point. And so um I know there's a lot of

[20:23] people that helped bring the space to life, but I want to thank Lori, Greg,

[20:27] Keith, Darren for bringing this space to life. And then also you guys as

[20:31] commissioners for backing that in the budget. Um it's an incredible room. If

[20:37] you haven't had a chance to look at it, please please take a look. Uh but with

[20:41] that space and that backing along with our comprehensive benefits package, uh

[20:47] we are super excited to be able to receive uh the employee and I don't have

[20:51] the name correct uh but the gold breastfeeding employee support award as

[20:57] a along with um the breastfeeding welcome here. So, we do have um both of

[21:02] those uh behind our name and you can see different signs in our windows and then

[21:06] also in some of our break rooms.

[21:11] [clears throat] >> So, you can see the last bullet point on

[21:14] there. Um our city county government works a little bit different. Um but we

[21:20] do have the haze wreck on board as well. Um, I visited with Roger on a couple of

[21:25] different points about the swimming pool staff. And so that was a little bit of

[21:30] explanation to the Kansas Breastfeeding Coalition and and how we did that. So I

[21:35] just really want to thank um Jennifer and you guys for supporting our families

[21:41] um in the workplace, especially breastfeeding mothers. Um it's really

[21:45] important in this day and age that we're supporting families. So um thank you for

[21:50] that. Do you have any questions? >> This is just some pictures from the

[21:58] proclamation and the ribbon cutting. Um, so you can see Mayor Rutder came down

[22:05] and read the proclamation and we had a nice attendance for that.

[22:10] So, and Commissioner Burgess was there with his wife as well.

[22:16] » I have no questions. I appreciate what you do for the for the county and the

[22:19] surrounding areas for breastfeeding. So, thank you.

[22:22] » Yes, you're welcome. >> Yeah, I have the same thing and I'm I'm

[22:25] glad we can provide our employees that space here. It was kind of a

[22:31] » eye opener at first, but >> here it is now.

[22:35] » Yeah, >> it's all about education, right?

[22:37] » Yes. And one of our own people is involved in it big time. So, I

[22:42] appreciate that very much. >> Yes. I love Jennifer's forward thinking.

[22:48] Thank you for coming. That's uh I attended there and and could see the the

[22:52] the excitement and and being proud of the accomplishments that you've achieved

[22:56] over this. But I thought it was important again to invite you here.

[23:00] Ellis County had some part in that in in what Jennifer was able to do, but also

[23:05] to let the public understand that um the benefits and and and just reach out for

[23:11] support. >> Yes. But it wasn't just something that

[23:13] you guys signed on a paper and said this is our designation. You really had to

[23:17] put in a lot of effort from the community, from businesses, from the

[23:20] hospital and others. So I thought it was a a great opportunity invite you to

[23:25] continue to brag about that with the public health.

[23:27] » I really appreciate the opportunity. We don't often get a ch get a chance to

[23:32] talk about breastfeeding, but I always joke it's a good day when I get to talk

[23:35] about breastfeeding just because it's it's so important in getting um families

[23:40] off to a good start and getting children and mothers off to a good start. So, I

[23:45] really appreciate the opportunity. >> Well, thank you.

[23:49] » Thank you. >> And then Thank you, ladies.

[23:53] » And then, um I wanted to go ahead and introduce [clears throat]

[23:56] Ben Sims. Uh he is our new 4 >> just to she didn't have the chance to

[24:02] speak but Christina Morales does [clears throat] a lot for us as well.

[24:06] She's walking out the room but >> she's over at our health department. She

[24:09] does a lot over there with uh breastfeeding over there and the women

[24:12] in in care or wick program that they have. So

[24:15] » uh women, infants and children. So I just want to recognize her even though

[24:18] she didn't get a get a talk. >> Yes, we are excited to have the health

[24:23] department as part of our >> as part of our coalition. Thank you for

[24:27] coming today. Um we're so excited to have them a part of our coalition now

[24:32] and having them attending our meetings and also working alongside us on another

[24:36] project that we do, the becoming a mom pre prenatal education series. So yes,

[24:42] thank you. Um okay, so um back to the Cottonwood Extension District. Um Ben,

[24:49] uh has been with extension for a few years. Ben and act Ben and I were

[24:54] actually hired the same day back in 2022. Um he was hired in Greenwood

[24:59] County and then made his way to Barton County to be a little bit closer to

[25:04] family and then he joined our office right before fair. So we've got him

[25:09] broke in really well now. So >> thank you Mon'nique. As she said, Ben

[25:15] Sims 4 and youth development agent serving here in the Cottonwood Extension

[25:19] District. She alluded to it. I've been in extension for about four years.

[25:22] started in Greenwood County as the A and 4 agent down there. I grew up in

[25:25] Missouri 4 program did a lot for me. I'm just really looking forward to the

[25:30] opportunity to be here to work with this community working with our 4 volunteers

[25:33] that we have and then working with the kids. I'm really been impressed with the

[25:36] the families that we have here so far and and the kids I've gotten a chance to

[25:40] work with getting a chance to go through the fair and see all of that. So, I

[25:44] think we've just got some really good opportunities available to us here.

[25:48] We've got some families that are really active that we can do some really cool

[25:51] things with and I'm looking forward to promoting the program more, really talk

[25:55] about what 4 is and what we can do and then kind of just trying to get some

[25:58] more kids involved wherever we can. Uh that's really all that I have. Um I did

[26:02] want to go ahead and invite you. You'll get a formal invite in the mail. Um but

[26:06] on October 24th will be our annual achievement banquet out at the

[26:09] fairgrounds in the evening. We'd love to have you come out and kind of see what

[26:12] the kids have done throughout the year and just celebrate their

[26:15] accomplishments. And then I'm looking forward to I've talked with Mr. Meyers

[26:18] to be on the September 15th agenda for a national 4 week proclamation. National 4

[26:24] week is October 4th through 10th this year. And so this proclamation is just

[26:29] to celebrate and proclaim that it is national 4 week in Ellis County and then

[26:34] 4 throughout the the nation. So do you have any questions for me?

[26:39] No. >> Welcome to Ellis County.

[26:41] » Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. >> He took um Tamara's position, correct?

[26:45] Okay. >> Unfortunately, Tamara is still in

[26:47] extension. She's down in for county, her home county, working as a 4 agent. That

[26:51] was a really great opportunity for her. And then, as Mo'nique alluded to, my

[26:54] wife grew up in Wilson, so all of her family is here. We're getting ready to

[26:57] welcome our second this Friday. So, just looking forward to growing our family

[27:01] and being closer to family and being in this community.

[27:03] » Very good. >> Good age, too.

[27:05] » Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm already ready for him to be in. Don't want to

[27:08] rush anything, but I'm excited for it. >> Well, they have some good breastfeeding

[27:12] facilities, so >> Exactly. That's what I hear. That's what

[27:15] I hear. >> They just brought that up. So,

[27:17] » yeah. >> All right. Thank you, everybody.

[27:20] » You're welcome. Thank you. >> I'm just going to pass around our family

[27:25] pizza day. I think you guys are aware of that. And um thank you again for the

[27:30] opportunity to be here today. >> Thank [clears throat] you.

[27:33] » Thanks again. >> EJ does good work, too. [laughter]

[27:39] » Our fearless leader. [laughter]

[28:02] Okay. Appraiser um with the study ratio um Eugene

[28:09] Morning

[28:13] commissioners. Uh you interrupt. Ellis County appraiser. [clears throat] Um

[28:17] this morning I was just going to go over the uh

[28:22] [clears throat] reports from the uh can department of revenue property valuation

[28:26] division. Um kind of in a a nutshell there there are report cards for the the

[28:32] past year or two years. So [clears throat] there there's actually

[28:34] two pieces to this. The first one is going to be the uh 2025 final ratio

[28:40] study and then the uh second piece will be I'll discuss the 2026 procedural

[28:46] compliance and substantial compliance reports. So um starting with that 2025

[28:53] um final ratio study um these results always come out about u about a year or

[29:01] half a year after the the calendar year is done. It's about a

[29:06] full year after our compliance year is done. So um the uh in this report here

[29:12] the top two lines would be the ones that uh would be of interest to you. That's

[29:17] the residential and commercial. Um on our residential, we did get a median

[29:23] ratio of 97.33. Um the median basically is the midpoint

[29:28] of values when you're looking at appraised values and sale prices. So um

[29:34] 100% would be perfect, but uh 97.33 um on a report card chart, I think most

[29:39] people would be pretty happy with that. And um on the commercial uh actually

[29:45] I'll go back to the media ratio over there. On the residential um on the far

[29:48] right you'll see that there's 313 sales. So we have quite a few sales to look at

[29:54] annually to help gauge our our valuations.

[30:00] On the commercial side we get a ratio of 89.82.

[30:05] Um there was only 12 sales. So a much smaller set of sales to look at to do

[30:11] some analysis on um does create a little more volatility when you're trying to uh

[30:16] analyze things with such a small subset of sales.

[30:21] » Jean, does that mean if a 100 is I guess you praised exactly right it's at 97.

[30:27] Does that mean we're actually under underappraising a little bit?

[30:30] » That's correct. So what's that saying is 100% would be we are hitting

[30:35] appraised values are at 100% of sale prices. So what this is saying with the

[30:40] median ratio it's saying is that sales prices are 97% or sorry appraised values

[30:48] » are 97% of the sale prices. So okay >> so if you had a home valued at $100,000

[30:55] our appraised value would typically be about $97,000.

[31:01] Um some of the measures of uh that are looked at are the COOD and the PRD. Um

[31:08] I'm going to read off the explanation on it. It can be a little bit um hard to

[31:13] understand. So I tried to simplify that. The COOD is uh the coefficient of

[31:18] dispersion. It measures the uh average distance from the median relative to the

[31:23] median itself. What that means in mass appraisal is it measures how spread out

[31:28] the individual sale price ratios are in relation to that median ratio.

[31:34] The the median ratio is chosen because the median is stable and not distorted

[31:38] by the outliers in the analysis. So what you what you want to take away from this

[31:43] it's really a consistency score. Um how consistent our valuations are. So on the

[31:50] residential we had a cood of 8.01 01. Um, a lower COOD means the ratios are

[31:58] really close together and that valuations are uniform and consistent.

[32:02] So, um, what that's telling you between the 97% ratio and the 8.01 COOD is that

[32:09] our our valuations we are slightly undervaluing properties and that we are

[32:15] uh uniform and consistent in the process in which we're using [clears throat]

[32:20] on the commercial COOD. We did get a 31.45.

[32:24] It is a little bit higher and that is again simply because there's only 12

[32:28] sales. Those points are it's a little more spread out. It's harder to to hit

[32:34] that midpoint with such a small sales set. Um the PRD

[32:40] that is on that third column there. The PRD is the price related differential

[32:46] and that shows whether lowpriced and highric properties are valued fairly

[32:51] compared to each other. Um simply stated it checks to see if lowerric properties

[32:57] are being valued too high or higher price properties are being valued too

[33:01] low. Um so if you are um if you're around the one 1.0 zero means your

[33:10] valuations are equitable across all price ranges. And so we did on the

[33:14] residential we did get a PRD of one. So that's saying that our what that is

[33:19] saying is that our valuations are equitable equitable across all price

[33:25] ranges. Um when you get over um 1.3 or a little bit over in that range, what that

[33:32] tends to represent is a little bit of regressivity.

[33:35] um that means the lower price properties tend to be valued at higher ratios than

[33:40] the higher priced ones. And if you have a PRD of 0.98 or below, that means you

[33:46] have what's called progressivity where higher priced properties tend to

[33:51] be valued at higher ratios than lower priced ones. So um one is the best you

[33:57] can hope for on a PRD and we uh we did achieve that for 2025 on the

[34:03] residential. In the commercial, we'd get a 1.18.

[34:07] Um, again, that small subset of sales makes that that number very volatile

[34:12] from year to year.

[34:16] So, that is kind of a summary of the residential commercial commercial

[34:22] statistics for the 2025 um valuation year. Um I will circle back

[34:29] to these statistics a little bit in my final report on 2026.

[34:35] So the other lines at the bottom there, the state does not measure those um

[34:39] those other subsets or evaluation classes. So

[34:45] So going to the um next slide,

[34:50] uh just the letter here from the state of Kansas. Uh they send one to me. I

[34:55] believe they've also sent one to the commissioners. The court received um

[34:58] basically still telling us that we are in compliance. Um the the takeaway from

[35:03] here would be that middle uh middle paragraph there where it'll state that a

[35:09] score of 75 points or greater is required to be considered in substantial

[35:15] compliance. So, uh, to be in compliance with all of the, um,

[35:23] I don't know what the word is, but to be in compliance with the state, we have to

[35:26] hit that 75 points. Um, we go to the next slide. Um, and

[35:32] there's about seven pages to this slide. I'm not going to go through these in

[35:36] line by line here, but basically this next seven pages, this is a report that

[35:40] contains a list of all the analysis phases and the submission dates where we

[35:46] sent that analysis into uh PBD. So we, as you can see, it takes up seven pages.

[35:52] We do lots and lots and lots of analysis throughout the year.

[35:58] So, um if you would go down about seven pages there to the um

[36:07] the right document, there'll be a document titled 26. Yep, that one right

[36:12] there. This document is the procedural compliance review checklist for 2026. Um

[36:19] and again, this report is five pages. What this one does is it's going to show

[36:24] whether or not we are in compliance with the procedures that um the Kansas

[36:28] Department revenue has set out for us. Um the takeaway from this report is

[36:32] going to be that uh all procedures were followed as indicated by the Y which

[36:37] indicates yes in every one of these. So we did get a yes on every uh measure

[36:42] that the state checks up on us. And then I'll have you go to about five

[36:49] pages down here to the

[36:56] will be the second last page right there. Yes. So this is the um actual

[37:02] compliance report. You'd want to think of this as our report card so far for

[37:05] 2026. And um what this does, it assigns all of

[37:12] those previous reports that I just went over. um the different compliance phases

[37:17] and then whether or not we are hitting those with that yes or no in that in

[37:21] that prior report. This one here is going to actually assign points to each

[37:28] different [snorts] phase that we do throughout the year. So a play a phase

[37:32] could be um com completed at 100% or partially completed if you receive

[37:37] partial points. This is where that 75 points uh in that initial letter comes

[37:42] into play. Um so in this report here um there is a mix of data. So I will point

[37:49] out where you get to under section one the statistical performance

[37:54] the ratio and confidence ranges that that is 2025 data. That's the only part

[38:00] of this report that reflects on 2025. Everything is what we're doing for 2026

[38:06] so far. >> [clears throat]

[38:08] » And uh you will see at the top that we did hit um 100%. Um I could go through

[38:14] each one of these. I'm not going to waste your time with that. Um but as you

[38:18] go down through the mass appraisal process phases, you can see that we we

[38:25] did get 100% of the uh points this year that were available. Um so I want to

[38:32] give kudos to my staff. This is not something I can do on my own. It takes a

[38:36] team and I have a great team working for me and for you and uh I I think I'm very

[38:43] proud of them. I think you should be proud of them to to achieve that 100% on

[38:47] on this here. So, and uh any questions on that?

[38:56] » I have no questions. Thank you to you and your staff for getting that

[38:59] completed and getting that all in. So, we appreciate that.

[39:03] » All right. Thank you. Thank you.

[39:08] » Thank you, J.

[39:13] [clears throat] All right, fairground signs. Darren,

[39:17] morning, commissioners. Darren Myers, county administrator.

[39:20] Uh, next agenda is to discuss the, uh, signs out at the Ellis County

[39:26] Fairgrounds. As you know, as the commission knows, back in July, uh there

[39:30] was a request to rename the center part of the shank and unride building to the

[39:36] Lauren Zimmerman Interite WF West meeting room. Uh [clears throat] and

[39:42] with that became the identification that we needed to update some of the signage

[39:45] on the the building to properly do that, but also the other ones were quite old.

[39:50] Uh since that time, the commission asked to come up with a design that would be

[39:54] then taken through the fair board for approval. And attached to the agenda

[39:58] item today is I'll just scroll down to it. Those those signs um for the

[40:04] building, they would be about 3T tall by 6 foot wide. And [clears throat] got a

[40:09] quote to have them printed up and put on metal backing

[40:14] uh to be installed out there. there was an install price on there, but between

[40:18] our staff and as well as the fair board and volunteer and their volunteers, uh

[40:22] they would be able to get those signs installed onto the building. So, we

[40:26] would only have a total expense of just about $2,100 for the three signs. The

[40:32] second part of the agenda item was to discuss uh from a previous request from

[40:37] the commission to look at uh purchasing LED marquee type signs to install on the

[40:43] front of the building. So that way they could be identified as to for instance

[40:46] the shank or the unrine if there's a wedding, a meeting, reunion, whatever it

[40:51] may be. Um we could post on onto that LED sign and change it after each event.

[40:57] So that way if there's multiple events going on there, people would know which

[41:01] side of the building they would be entering. When we did just a rough uh

[41:06] estimate on those LED signs, that would be at least programmable remotely so

[41:10] that you would have to be on site every time, every week, multiple times to

[41:14] update the signs. Um those quotes were about $10,000 a sign. And um

[41:21] [clears throat] once we saw that price, we're like, well, let's see if we can

[41:24] look at an alternate price. And so we just did the quick search of Amazon

[41:29] because you can find almost anything on Amazon. Uh you can bring those signs

[41:33] down to about $1,000 a piece, but then you'd have to be on site with an app

[41:37] logged into the local Wi-Fi in the buildings to be able to connect to the

[41:40] signs via that route and then program them. um tried to look at that route a

[41:47] little bit more with staff and then talking with the fair board and possibly

[41:51] even allowing that app and the password to the signs to be given to those who

[41:57] rent the building but then that comes with the chance of it being used

[42:01] inappropriately or not right or something being posted on the signs etc.

[42:05] Um and no nobody really felt that that would be the best course there. So after

[42:12] the fair board discussed that they had made the suggestion that um no LED not

[42:16] to purchase any LED signs to the commission and they did approve these

[42:21] signs for the building you know just the the metal signs to be installed on the

[42:25] front and um that total price for the three signs would be $2,31.

[42:34] » Are there any lights that would shine onto these signs to light these signs?

[42:39] Uh yeah. Yes. And I don't remember which ones. I

[42:45] talked to Tom Frost about that. >> I think two out of the three I don't

[42:49] think the Lauren Zimmerman the middle room has one, but I think the other two

[42:53] has right at the top eve of the building there's signs that or LED lights.

[42:58] » Okay. >> That shine down.

[43:00] » So, we are going to light up the sign some way of

[43:03] » I think there are exterior lights that come on. I don't know if they're on a

[43:05] photo track or not, but I could check. And um like I say, I don't think the the

[43:10] middle one has one, but if the commission wants, we can we can probably

[43:14] fit that within their budget. It would cost a little bit to run wiring up there

[43:18] and get a a sign or a light installed, but we could look at it.

[43:22] » I guess if we need it, you know, but if not, I it I'm fine with doing this as

[43:27] long as we have plenty of lighting on them.

[43:30] that would that would get us by until we can like say do some more research on

[43:35] the um marquees. But I'm I'm good with that too to light them up at least that

[43:40] way people will know.

[43:45] » Yeah. So is that with the LED signs then just kind of put it on the back burner

[43:50] for now is essentially what they want to do or we want to do just

[43:54] » they were fine not having the LEDs at all. I appreciated the idea in the from

[43:59] the commission, but with the price tag, there's it's just too much. I mean, the

[44:05] the price that was in there also doesn't include having to have an electrician go

[44:08] out there and because there's no electricity up there for them to be able

[44:12] to plug the signs in as well. So, not only would be the price of the sign,

[44:16] having it installed as well, but then also having electrician and they

[44:19] [clears throat] just didn't figure that that was a priority um to have it out

[44:23] there. Okay.

[44:29] Very good. I'll I'll take their recommendation on it. They're the ones

[44:33] that are out there on a regular basis. So, I appreciate their input.

[44:38] But so, you do not need a motion to move forward with those signs or doing that.

[44:43] » No, no, sir. The commission just asked that before we purchased any sign that

[44:47] you had the chance to be able to view what uh what they voted on to to move

[44:51] forward with. I'd give the kudos to Chrisa. She's the

[44:56] one that came up with several designs and then um she actually got voted on to

[45:01] the fair board this year. So, she's she was a member and they they took a couple

[45:05] different ones, I believe, and tweaked them into one concept, which is what you

[45:09] can see here. And so, she did all the work and um actually all all the work. I

[45:14] just put it on the agenda. So, she got the quotes and everything.

[45:17] » Okay. Well, thank you too, Carissa. >> Thanks, [laughter] Carissa. Yeah. Yeah.

[45:24] Okay. Well, we'll get those ordered and um installed in the next few months. The

[45:29] other thing just as it just popped in my head, if you haven't noticed, the sign

[45:33] outside this building um in the entrance is it's only about what 12 years old

[45:40] since we moved into this facility, but it's very faded. And the sign company's

[45:46] also looking at that to get it um either resscreened or whatever it's called to

[45:51] have that um that sign redone. >> Okay.

[45:55] » Just just the insert, not the whole entire sign. So that way it's not faded

[45:58] so bad and it looks looks better. >> Okay.

[46:04] » All right. Thanks, Darren. County administrator

[46:09] report. >> Uh nothing. Okay.

[46:15] commissioners. >> Well, after our uh our last meeting, I

[46:21] had a meeting with access transportation. So, a little update on

[46:25] that. Still moving forward with that, um we're still doing a lot of information

[46:30] gathering and findings. One thing that did come out of that and I I mentioned

[46:35] it the next day on our the radio when I was on the radio with Haze Post, but one

[46:41] thing that the state brought to our attention, everyone in the room, they

[46:45] posed the question, who's ridden access? It's it's general public transportation

[46:51] and they asked who's actually been on scheduled and ridden and uh it's pretty

[46:58] stark contrast because nobody in the room had

[47:02] So the the challenge was posed to us is to schedule a ride, get on ride before

[47:10] making any critical decisions on it and kind of get a gest of it. So I would

[47:15] pose that challenge. I I have not completed that yet. Uh I plan to do so

[47:19] in the coming days, but uh I would pose that challenge to anyone here in the

[47:24] room or my fellow commissioners to get on and try it. Um

[47:29] there there's about 200 people monthly that ride that that transportation on a

[47:35] day, you know, weekly bi-weekly, daily basis. So that's about the size of the

[47:41] workforce of our county. So there's just there's a number of people and there

[47:46] we're going through some factf findings, but there we're we haven't made any

[47:50] decisions and uh it's an interesting challenge. So

[47:54] » is the uh Ellis people still is that pretty much a main deal? A lot of

[48:00] » So there's quite a few the the number of people from Ellis writing are picking up

[48:04] um there's about three of them. There's between three and five I believe that

[48:11] are coming over for medical attention dialysis.

[48:14] » So uh pretty pretty nec necessary need for those individuals.

[48:22] So that's but that we're still like I said we're still going through the

[48:25] finding effect of what we need, what we need to do, where we need to go. Um

[48:31] working through a number of different programs.

[48:35] » So >> okay, thank you for the update.

[48:37] » Yes. >> Yeah. I don't I don't think I've ever

[48:42] ridden access years ago when they ran kind of the tiger thing. Tiger access

[48:47] after >> right there's bars. I kind of did

[48:49] » uh safe ride >> safe ride but yep access itself I've

[48:53] never done so >> and it is it is a general public

[48:57] transportation anybody >> can ride just call them and uh schedule

[49:02] a ride you know it's it's not it's not for strictly disabled individuals it's

[49:08] general public transportation

[49:15] couple updates had a kamp

[49:19] uh board meeting last week. So, the good news coming out of that, we voted um

[49:24] across aggregate across all our membership to keep insurance premiums um

[49:30] neutral for this year. So, that's good for all the counties. For Ellis, we

[49:34] won't know the renewal forms are going out, but probably be a little bit of an

[49:40] increase, not as large as we budgeted. Um Ellis, of course, um one of the

[49:44] larger counties in the membership. Also, we have a jail which has high liability.

[49:48] Um, so counties without a jail, you know, don't have that to go with. Ellis

[49:53] also, good or bad, we tend to have a lot of claims, especially in the last few

[49:57] years. And so that kind of goes into individual county premiums, but overall

[50:04] it should should be flat or a little bit of an increase for Ellis County. What do

[50:08] we budget? Six% >> seven

[50:11] » 7%. So, um I don't foresee it being that for Elms County. Um along with that

[50:17] though, I don't we're already in our budget. You know, we basically approved

[50:21] it. We can lower it, but I don't really see the need to lower it. Um

[50:28] couple of reasons. One, we don't know what health insurance is going to do.

[50:31] So, if if we, you know, I guess if we take some of the savings off of

[50:36] liability budgetarily wise, that could help us

[50:39] with the health insurance maybe. um once that comes through or if you know at

[50:43] this point we can just kind of kind of bank it for next year and you know can't

[50:48] expect insurance to not be flat every year. So um from that standpoint maybe

[50:53] it's just savings for next budget cycle but overall that's good news out of KAMP

[50:59] for for insurance premiums. Um and then the other thing I wanted to bring up I

[51:03] don't know if the other commissioners have been contacted. I had several

[51:06] members from Ellis uh community members from Ellis contact me yesterday. This is

[51:10] a kind of a growing issue. Um, South Ellis, uh, the grain elevator is dumping

[51:16] grain where they have in the past. Um, it's outside of city limits of Ellis.

[51:22] It's in county territory. I don't really know if we have any authority on

[51:27] anything, whether that's a KDHE or a USDA issue or a county issue, but um I

[51:35] think we may have to look into it a little bit for some of the residents

[51:38] over there with uh grain dust, mold dust, birds dying because they're eating

[51:44] dead old grain and stuff like that. Um [clears throat]

[51:47] I know it's been brought up over the city of Ellis meetings. Again, it's

[51:51] outside the city limits, but just barely. Um,

[51:55] I don't know if it's potentially something we need to look in our zoning

[51:58] regulations of, you know, setbacks on grain dumping and those kind of things,

[52:03] residents. I don't know. But, um, been contacted multiple times now. So, one of

[52:10] the individuals wanted to be here this morning to to bring it up himself, but

[52:14] he had wasn't wasn't going to be able to make make the time. So, I told them I'd

[52:19] bring it up to my fellow commissioners and make them aware if they weren't

[52:22] already. It's what I got. Okay.

[52:31] All right. Thank you. Um, I did go to the farmer to farmer um, talk to Darren

[52:36] a little bit about that, but um, I would like to if the if my fellow

[52:41] commissioners will allow to let Dustin, Kryley, and Lyall come in and kind of

[52:48] give a little bit of a presentation what it was on, it was on controlled burning.

[52:53] Um, so which I thought it was pretty interesting. There was there was quite a

[52:57] few people there, but the word don't get around. Hopefully we can get it here

[53:01] also. Um do anything we can. So you guys are good with that then I'll get Dustin

[53:08] and Lyall if we can get them on the you know agenda. So

[53:15] um then I also did through the Hayes Chamber went to uh Clicks in the mall

[53:20] which they're they've been there 10 years now. So, um, thanks to them for

[53:25] staying in there and helping us out on our taxes and helping our people have a

[53:30] place to shop to get clothes. Um, also remember everybody that United Ways, you

[53:37] know, going. So, if you can you can support them in any any which way. Um, I

[53:43] say it again, it's a matter of just from experience, it's when you need it. Um

[53:48] it's very important and there's a lot a lot of different organizations in there.

[53:53] So um that's I guess that's all I have and

[53:58] make sure everybody makes to the next meeting on September the 8th. Meeting

[54:01] adjourned at 9:18.

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[54:25] Heat. Heat. [music]

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Ellis County, KS Commission

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