By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
HAYS – The Ellis County Commission began the process of trimming the number of townships within the county at its meeting this week.
On Tuesday, in a 2-0 vote, Commissioner Michael Berges was absent, the commission approved five resolutions that disorganize five townships and attach them to four other townships. The resolutions move to cut the number of townships from nine to four.
Ellis County Clerk and Election Officer Bobbi Dreiling said she has been working on this process since she took office in 2021. She said there had been townships that had asked for disorganization in the last couple of years.
“People did not want to run for the offices when they were on the ballot,” Dreiling said. “When people would have write-in names, we would call them and they usually turned the position down.”
Dreiling said all of the township boards approved the moves presented and approved by the commission.
The resolutions disorganize Catherine and Ellis townships and attach them to Buckeye Township. The resolutions also disorganized Lookout Township and attached it to Big Creek Township. Victoria Township was disorganized and attached to Herzog Township and they disorganized Wheat Township and attached it to Freedom Township.
Dreiling said because the townships no longer take care of the roads, the Public Works Department does, most of the townships were collecting taxes to go through the processes required by state statute to produce a budget even though they did not have any governmental functions.
“A lot of the township were just levying for money, to pay their board members, to do their publication of their budget and the preparation of their budget and to pay for the treasurer bond,” Dreiling said. “For quite a few years a lot of them haven’t even been levying anything because they have money in their coffers that they are trying to spend down.”
Dreiling said any money left over for the townships that are being disorganized would go to the township there are being attached to.
Now that the resolutions have been approved, the clerk will have a public hearing at 8:30 a.m. on July 18. Any resident of the township can ask questions at that time.
If there are residents who want to challenge the resolutions, they can file a petition. However, the petition must have a majority of township residents' signatures and be filed with the county clerk’s office within 30 days of the final publication of the notice to disorganize in the local newspaper.
If the petition is certified by the clerk's office then the measure would to a ballot question for townships residents.