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Logan County Board
Logan County budget set to be passed in time for Thanksgiving
[November 11, 2026]
The Logan County Board met
later than usual on Monday, November 9th. The meeting started at
7:00 p.m. following the Building and Grounds Committee meeting. The
meeting was held specifically to vote on displaying the budget the
county has been working on the past several months. The county’s
budget runs from December 1st to November 30th, and the budget must
be displayed for no less than fifteen days according to state law.
Nine of the twelve members of the board attended the meeting.
Chairman Lance Conahan, Vice Chairman Joseph Kuhlman, Dale Nelson,
Jim Wessbecher, Hannah Fitzpatrick, Kathy Schmidt, Keenan Leesman,
Andrea Hinton, and Kevin Knauer were all present. JR Glenn, Gil
Turner, and Bob Sanders were absent.
The room said the Pledge of Allegiance, but the board skipped the
invocation. There were no public comments, so Conahan moved on to
the first item, which was to have another discussion over the
budget. Kuhlman shared that not much had changed with the budget
over the last couple of months. He said that the amount they would
have to pull from their corporate reserves would be $147,489. This
was less than the fiscal year 2026 (FY26) budget, so said he felt
the county was “heading in the right direction.”
Nelson spoke next, asking about
some deficits in the airport fund and the courthouse restoration
fund. Conahan spoke on the latter, stating that he felt it must be
an error. He looked into some numbers and said that both the revenue
and expenditures for the restoration fund should be $1.6 million,
which was only true for the revenue line. It was stated that, even
if the budget is on display, changes can still be made to it.
Conahan stated that he would reach out to Justin Harmon of
Bellwether to make the changes. Nelson stated that he had no
intention of holding the process of displaying the budget but just
wanted to make sure that Harmon could be talked to on anything else
that needed to be changed.
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Wessbecher shared
that the other deficit was due to needing to hire a Program
Compliance Oversight Monitor (PCOM) for Show Bus. This is a
position the county is required to have to keep their Show Bus
grant. Wessbecher stated that the Show Bus grant season runs
from July 1st to June 30th. The funds to pay the PCOM employee
would come from the grant, but the state is behind on
distributing the funds. That being the case, the county would
need to have money to pay the PCOM employee while they waited to
be reimbursed by the state.
Schmidt asked what the county had
decided to do regarding the vehicles that the Sheriff’s Department
needs. Conahan stated that about $62,000 had been put aside to
purchase one vehicle, with the other vehicles being purchased out of
the Sheriff’s budget.
With no other items to discuss,
Schmidt made a motion to display the FY27 budget. The board took a
vote and passed the motion unanimously. They then discussed a date
to meet to approve the final budget. It was decided to have a short
meeting on November 25th at 6:00 p.m.
There was one more item on the agenda. Current Logan County Sheriff
Mark Landers is set to retire early on November 15th. That being the
case, they need someone to fill in as Sheriff until November 30th.
Seeing as how Josh Pharis is the Sheriff-elect, the board decided he
would be the most reasonable candidate to fill in until his term
officially starts on December 1st. The board approved Pharis’
appointment unanimously. Pharis is set to be sworn in for this
appointment on Thursday, November 12th at 8:00 a.m. at the Sheriff’s
office in the courthouse.
With no other business to attend to, the meeting was adjourned.
[Matt Boutcher]
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