County counselor position and GCH funding in question

Jun. 7—County Counselor Steve Opat will retire in September and the Geary County Commission has begun discussing what to do with Opat's position once he vacates it. The county counselor provides legal advice to the county commission.

Giordano has called into question whether the position — such as it is right now — is needed.

"In 2017, when Commissioner (Larry) Hicks, Commissioner (Ben) Bennett and Commissioner (Florence) Whitebread were here — it was the elected officials' term — and they decided that day after all of the budget hearings, all of our budgets for 2017 had been done, to create a county counselor department," she said. "And not only did they create a county counselor department with a full-time county counselor and a secretary, they also added a deputy county counselor making $43,000 a year."

Previously, the county had only had one contracted, part-time county counselor position, according to Giordano.

"We had three full-time people with benefits when were were doing that just by contract," she said. "No other county that I could find our size has a full-time county counselor. Lyon County, Harvey County, Cowley County are all either contract or in the county attorney's office. I don't feel it should be the county attorney's office because of some conflicts because we have KCAMP which is an insurance carrier. They can also provide legal services as well. So even if it's part-time in the county attorney's office, I feel we have obligations that could be a conflict."

However, Giordano said she believed changes should be made to the position, bringing it back to what it was before changes were made in 2017. She said she believed the county could save money by making this move — money which could be put toward other county projects.

"I feel the money that is spent going back to contract county counselors could be used for the county financial coordinator," Giordano said. "Like I said, no other county our size has a full-time county counselor."

During the June 7 meeting, Giordano made a motion to make the county counselor position a contract position, but the motion died for lack of a second.

The subject will be on the agenda for next week's meeting which takes place June 14.

GCH building

The county has also debated the amount of financial help it is able to provide to Geary Community Hospital.

Giordano believed the county should provide funding for GCH to repair its building, which the county owns.

"I just have a hard time with — when the hospital is begging for money because they need a new roof and the building's falling apart — that commissioners decided to redo a lease that three years prior had been done and this money was just sitting there and so they transferred all the money to a depreciation and replacement fund which was created under supplemental lease and can only be used for replacement of equipment and materials in the courthouse, the Pennell Building and office buildings when we were told by bond attorneys that some of that could be used for the hospital," she said. "So I'm sorry if I just assumed that this was done purposely to not let us help the hospital."

"It was not," Commissioner Keith Ascher said.

"Well it looks like it to me," Giordano said. "We could have used some of it for the hospital and it was decided not to do it at that time."

Ascher said that upon talking to the county's bond counsel, the funds could technically be used to help with the hospital building but that doing so would be "very complicated."

"It ain't as simple as that," he said.

Commissioner Alex Tyson was in partial agreement with Ascher about GCH.

"I agree with Keith on the side of the hospital," he said. "They have to figure out if they want to refinance those bonds or not because that can save them money."

Ascher also said he felt the county had done enough to help GCH by providing COVID-19 relief SPARK funds to the hospital and signing off on no fund warrants for GCH. Giordano disagreed.

"As of today, the county has done nothing extra to help the hospital," Giordano said. "You issued them no-fund warrants and that's it."

"We gave them SPARK money too," Ascher said.

"You gave them SPARK money because they were entitled to the SPARK money," Giordano said. "We have not done anything as a county — anything extra."