Apples and oranges
Wayne “Jackie” Leffler
Thursday, November 2, 2006
DOES Lyon County need a County Administrator? NO!
Lyon County commissioners have had a full time go-to person and full time secretary for over 20 years. Their county counselor and secretary to the commission kept them very well informed. The counselor attended all of their meetings and attended many meetings away from the courthouse.
In most counties of Kansas, the county clerk is their contact person. Many counties, for legal advice, would need to contact the county attorney’s office to see who is available and when.
Comparing Lyon County to Butler, Finney and Ford counties that have been used for comparison is like comparing apples and oranges. Ford and Finney counties are about the same in population; Butler is almost double. Butler and Finney have twice the valuation. Ford and Butler have township roads. That cost is not part of a county budget or mill levy. Ford and Finney have many feed yards and also much irrigation, but rainfall is much less and (they) don’t have the cost of flooding maintenance. Butler is heavily populated on the west and sparely on the east and has much oil. Butler has six cities well over 1,400 population and Lyon County only has Emporia of any size. A county administrator has no legal control over elected officials.
So where will there be a great improvement over what Lyon County has had for years and has been taken for granted? And they are using a term of “professional county administrator” to sound good? Can this other county administrator fill in as a counselor for the commission? The information that has been coming out in Lyon County is very biased.
Lyon County, for years, has been providing more services than other counties. As a rule, Lyon County is one of the first to come on board on providing service, road signs, naming roads, computer updates and buying sheriff’s cars, ambulances, law enforcement equipment with Emporia. The Lyon County road department has one of the few county LPA engineers in the state, which saved the county about $40,000 on each major bridge that is built. Some people agree, some people don’t, on Lyon County service.
You need to be concerned with the welfare, health and service for Lyon County. The information that has been coming out in Lyon County doesn’t present all the information.
What is my total tax bill?
Total mill levies :
Emporia — 151.525 — L yon County
Dodge City — 162.677 — Ford County
Garden City — 135.567 — Finney County
Augusta — 151.989 — Butler County
El Dorado — 143.654 — Butler County
Do any of these counties and cities have a sales tax that supplements their budget?
Lyon County has a 1/2-cent sales tax to pay for the courthouse, not for the budget.
Emporia has a 1/2-cent sales tax for industrial development and a 1/2-cent tax for street and sidewalk improvement. This generates about $4,000,000 in annual revenues for Emporia, equivalent to about 30 mills in extra levies.
Emporia has many sources of revenue besides a mill levy — bed tax, franchise tax, parking meters revenue, water and sewer revenue. Lyon County’s main revenue source is the county jail, if space is available. There are many sources of revenue besides a mill levy. They all cost dollars.
It has often been said that the rural population does not pay any taxes for Emporia, but Emporia pays county tax. Every time I spend money in Emporia, I pay part of this $4,000,000 to benefit Emporia.
Emporia has a city manager form of government and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation is doing an investigation into alleged irregularities at the city office. Could it be the county has a better form of government than the city?
You need to compare total costs and all total services for a fair comparison.
Wayne “Jackie” Leffler is a former Lyon County commissioner.
joyce66801 (anonymous) says...
That is great that the Lyon County Commissioners have a go to person.
Who is that person? and can the public go to that person when THEY have questions and problems within the county? As I see it a County Administrator would provide that.
Can the county commissioners meet at night? so that people that weren't retired or self employed could run for office? As it looks now only those people that have lots of time on their hands, and are free during the day can participate.
November 4, 2006 at 6:52 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )