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Butler County, Kan., Attorney's Office to Receive Software Support

The software will be utilized for case and records management.

(TNS) -- Chief Information Officer Scott Stoskopf met with the Butler County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday, August 8 to recommend approving payment for 2017/2018 software support of Journal Technologies, Inc.'s JustWare application.

JustWare is the software utilized for case and records management in the Butler County Attorney's office. The board of county commissioners approved the payment of $23,263 to Journal Technologies for the software support, which is covered in the 2016 budget.

Next, Sandy Koontz, who works for Butler County Conservation, reported a comprehensive solid waste management plan annual review to the board of commissioners. The review was a product of the county's solid waste planning committee meeting on July 27, of which Koontz was chair. Two main topics from the committee meeting were the 2017 recycling outlook and trees, brush, limbs and stumps brought to the landfill.

The review stated that the current market for recyclables is in a downward trend. The committee will be meeting after the third quarter, sometime in October, to further discuss recycling programs and come up with ideas on how to strengthen them.

Concerning the trees, brush, limbs and stumps brought to the landfill, the review referenced the waste activity analysis from 2012 – which showed 319 tons of trees, brush, limbs and stumps were brought to the county landfill. Comparing that number to the second quarter of 2017, the landfill has so far received 3,098 tons due to land clearing, housing developments, pipeline projects and Westar Energy tree program projects.

After the board of commissioners accepted the annual review and directed staff to submit it to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Public Works Director and County Engineer Darryl Lutz proposed a commercial tree waste disposal policy for the county landfill in which he recommended adopting fees for the disposal and management of commercial tree waste.

Butler County received an average of 1,527 tons of tree waste per year for 2013 through 2015, 2,670 tons in 2016 and 3,400 tons to date for 2017. It is estimated that approximately 200 tons each year is residential tree waste, and the remainder is commercial tree waste. Lutz's proposal was to charge a fee of $25 per ton for commercial tree waste disposal at the landfill, with a minimum of $10 for trailer loads, and to continue with no charge to individual citizens with tree waste from their own yards. The fee should generate a minimum of $30,000 in revenue in a normal year with no change in landfill operations. The board approved the establishment of the separate fee for commercial tree waste received at the county landfill.

Then, Lutz gave an update on the new Deutz engine for the county's landfill compactor that the board of commissioners permitted him to purchase last week. Lutz said he found out the new engine is actually in Belgium, which complicates the process of the purchase. Because of this, Lutz now would like to have Stauffer Diesel of Pennsylvania remanufacture the current compactor engine's core that is bad instead of going ahead with the Belgium purchase. The board of county commissioners approved the not-to-exceed price of $41,000, plus transportation, in payment to Stauffer Diesel for a certified remanufactured Deutz engine.

Also during the meeting, Finance Director and Assistant County Administrator Ryan Adkison gave a 2017-Q2 financial/management report for the six months ending June 30.

The report explained that total revenues for all budgeted funds changed by 2 percent in the current year to $32.4 million, as compared to $31.8 million in the prior year. The top five revenue sources, which typically account for between 80 and 90 percent of the total revenues for Butler County's budgeted funds, totaled 88.3 percent of the total revenue – a decrease of 2 percent from 89.7 percent in the prior year. The ad valorem tax is the largest single revenue available to Kansas counties. Collections from the ad valorem property tax for Butler County increased 2.6 percent to $22.13 million, from last year's $21.57 million.

The report also revealed that total county expenditures decreased by 5 percent year-over-year, with expenses of $43.9 million in the prior year and $41.7 million in the current year. The largest major expenditure for Butler County is salary and benefits for employees. Salary and benefits spending increased 4.5 percent to $8.11 million, from last year's $7.76 million.

During the report, the board of commissioners also discussed the current inmate count at the Butler County Jail.

"The count was 182, revenue [was] 5,585 [dollars]," County Commissioner Jeff Masterson said.

The inmate count was still around 180 on July 11, which was bringing in roughly $5,400 in daily revenue at the time. Ideally, the jail would need to make $6,500 in daily revenue to be on budget.

After a five-minute break, Chief Information Officer Scott Stoskopf gave a project summary report for all current projects in the computer services department.

During the public comments segment of the meeting, El Dorado resident Scott Gill addressed the board of commissioners to discuss a claim he has against Butler County concerning the jail. The board gave no comment and advised Gill to settle the matter in court.

©2017 Butler County Times-Gazette, El Dorado, Kan Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.