By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Ellis County Sheriff Scott Braun will serve as the president of the Kansas Sheriff's Association for 2024. He highlighted some of the legislative priorities for the association before the Kansas Legislative session began on Monday.
Braun was elected as a president-elect last year by sheriffs from across the state.
This is Braun's first term as Ellis County Sheriff, a position for which he has already filed for re-election, but he has served for 27 years with the Ellis County Sheriff's Department, including as undersheriff.
The Legislature will be considering changes to forfeiture laws in drug cases.
Lawmakers have considered several changes to the law, including basing seizure laws on dollar amounts, the amount of the drug or criminal charges.
For example, a suspect might be required to have a minimum of $5,000 in cash for that money to be seized.
Funds seized by local law enforcement currently stay in the jurisdiction in which they are seized. Lawmakers have discussed having that money go to the state.
Diverting seized funds away from local law enforcement could be very harmful, Braun said. That money is used by counties to purchase equipment and fund drug enforcement operations.
Braun said he also does not support a cash limit being placed on seizures. He said a seizure of $500 might not be very much in a metro area, but it could stifle drug sales in a small community.
"Our stance as a KSA is if we can continue to do our forfeitures, even if there were some stipulations put in place, and receive that back, we are cutting off their funding mechanism, which slows down the drugs," he said.
Braun said he thinks the public has misconceptions about the forfeiture process. he said people think criminal cases are not being filed or funds are being taken without cause.
"I hear that in Topeka that we are stealing from the citizens or that we are doing an injustice or it's illegally being taken," Braun said.
Forfeiture is a civil process that is governed by state law, he said.
"If forfeiture is taken away from law enforcement, it will have an effect on taxpayers," Braun said. "We either won't be able to buy the equipment to do our job to get the drugs off the street or we are going to have to go to commissioners and say I'm going to need X amount of dollars to do controlled buys and buy equipment ..."
Braun would not disclose specific amounts of recent seizures in Ellis County, but he said during his work with drug enforcement within the Ellis County Sheriff's Department, the county has seized up to $1 million in one operation.
Mental health services
He said he hoped the Legislature will continue to work to provide more funding for mental health services in the state.
"Every sheriff across the state of Kansas is struggling with the mental health side," Braun said.
Despite the state set to add more in-patient mental health beds with a new facility in Wichita, the state is still short of beds, Braun said.
Individuals are still encountering long waits in county jails for competency evaluations, Braun said. The ACLU was unsuccessful in a recent attempt to force the state to address these wait times, which have been as much as 100 days, according to Braun.
"I'm not really sure they should be within our facilities. If they have a mental health issue, they should be elsewhere," he said.
Braun said at least 60 percent of the inmates in the Ellis County Jail have some sort of mental illness.
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The association offers annual training and a law enforcement conference. This includes training for jail staff and jail supervisors.
It also annually awards $15,000 in scholarships to children of members of law enforcement.