ERIE — Neosho County Attorney Tiana McElroy updated county commissioners on Monday on bank accounts tied to her office and recommended distributing diversion funds from one of them to law enforcement.
McElroy has taken the position vacated by Linus Thuston when he announced his retirement. Thuston later pleaded to two misdemeanor charges and served a short term in the county jail. McElroy won election to the seat in November.
McElroy told commissioners she would handle the bank accounts for her department going forward. She said her office has two accounts at Community National Bank and Trust and one at Emprise Bank, where she deposits money now.
One fund at Community National is labeled the law enforcement drug buy fund; this is where some diversion money ended up. She said diversions that were pending from Thuston’s tenure and not paid when she took office may still have proceeds that she will deposit. The law enforcement fund carried a $35,263 balance.
A diversion is an agreement between someone charged with a crime and the county attorney. The county attorney diverts the criminal case from prosecution for a specified time. If the defendant completes all terms of the diversion, including paying the fees or fines associated with it, the criminal case will be dismissed at the end of the diversion period.
The other account at Community National had a balance of $318,578 by the end of October, McElroy said.
The new account at Emprise Bank had a balance of $43,512.22 before a November deposit, she said. She has wanted to make weekly deposits but hasn’t been able to because of a staff shortage. Staffing has also limited the progress she could make in reorganizing the office and tracking previous spending.
She said her office had been collecting all diversion money before she took the job, including the money owed to the state for filing the criminal case and other fees associated with criminal cases.
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This money will be paid to the state once she figures out the number of diversion cases and calculates the fees owed. The office hadn’t sent any state fees in since May 2023, she said, a fact she didn’t realize until recently.
The district court clerk’s office is now collecting the state fees on diversions, McElroy said. Diversion application fees stay with the county attorney’s office, she said, and these proceeds can be used for office equipment and training.
McElroy said she had a plan to distribute money from the law enforcement fund. The sheriff’s office would like to improve its Flock camera system, which is used to read license plates of vehicles and the system runs those plate numbers through a crime database. The system will notify the sheriff if any of the vehicles were involved in crimes or had been reported as stolen. She would like to distribute $18,000 to the sheriff’s office to get six more cameras.
Chanute police also want to improve Flock coverage. The diversion money was used to pay the $5,000 storage fee for data from officer-worn body cameras in Chanute. That payment started with a previous county attorney and then stopped. McElroy said she would like to continue that. She wanted to give Chanute $11,263. She also would like to support the two school resource officers and the Erie Police Department. She suggested $3,000 to Erie and $3,000 for the resource officers. Commissioners approved these distributions.
When these payments are made by the county commission the law enforcement fund will be zeroed out, she said.
She said if any other diversion money comes in from Thuston’s tenure she would like it deposited in the county’s general fund. She said she didn’t want it in her account.
Commissioner Nicholas Galemore said he still would like to get a full accounting of the spending during Thuston’s tenure.
McElroy said she changed the diversion fee schedule. She charges $50 for speeding ticket diversions, $75 for misdemeanors and $150 for qualifying felonies. She said she likes to include a request in the diversion agreements to donate to a local organization, such as the Court Appointed Special Advocates program or to Cherry Street.
McElroy said she also designated one of her employees to work with crime victims, walking them through the criminal prosecution process, including the victim impact statements, and notifying them of hearings. She said she heard that crime victims previously didn’t think they were given the time that they deserved. Changing this will be a priority, McElroy said.
She’s also working on getting old cases wrapped up and new cases filed.
Galemore asked about auditing county attorney accounts. McElroy said she’s still working on that. She said she needs to have a better idea of the office and deposit practices before she can direct an auditor. Without that knowledge, she thought bringing an auditor in would be a waste of time.
In other matters, the commission: — Heard the 35 mph speed limit signs are now up on 240th Road between Plummer and Elk. The signs will stay up as crews replace the bridge on Elk Road.
