06/02/2026
*Official Commission Minutes for May 27, 2026 provided by Jami Page, Bates County Clerk*
Clerk Audit Bid / Personnel Policy Issues / Walnut Twp
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
17th day of April Term
The Bates County Commission met with Presiding Commissioner Jim Wheatley and Southern Commissioner Trent Nelson present. Northern Commissioner John Gray was absent.
Jami Page, the Bates County Clerk, met with the Commission to discuss the 2024-2025 Audit Bid that she received. The bid was sent to individuals as well as posted in the newspaper for two weeks, but only one bid was received.
Mueller Oberkfell & Jones, LLC quoted the Audit at $25.540.00 with a June start date. Jami did include in the Bid Proposal to have it finished by September.
Trent made a motion to accept the bid from Mueller Oberkfell & Jones, LLC, for the 2024-2025 Audit. Jim seconded the motion. All were in favor, one absent. Motion carried. No opposition.
Jami then spoke over the Bates County Sheriff’s Office Audit. She was emailed by the Auditors to retrieve signatures and put together the letterhead, so she sent out emails to gather such information. She is waiting to hear from Sheriff Anderson about whether he is going to sign or not.
Several Elected Officials came in and addressed issues they had with the new Personnel Policy that was presented by HR Solutions. Jim started the meeting explaining the changes that have been made and stated he understands there are more changes that need to be made and encouraged each individual office holder to figure out what needs to be rewritten for their specific office.
Chad Anderson, Bates County Sheriff, spoke on his issues. He felt as if there was a shift of independent power for the elected official. Where it addressed the Dress Code, he felt that should be up to the elected official. He also pointed out a section where it said in the event of promoting an employee, they had to involve the Clerk and the Commission and he felt that was not right, either. These certain things left him feeling like the Clerk and the Commission got all the power, but Jim reassured him that was not at all the case.
Kacie Robey, with the Treasurer/Collectors Office, expressed her concern about how the decision was made to effortlessly give $11,000 to this company for the entire policy to be redrafted and questioned what the policy was doing for the County. She then stated that all the Elected Officials could have sat down in a meeting and had this same conversation and revised the old policy. She then continued to express her aggravation on the fact that it took an extended amount of time for her software to be accepted. She then expressed that she feels as if there is no communication in this building.
Hugh Jenkins spoke up and circled things back around and asked the Commission if they were going to redraft the Policy for each office, Jim explained they don’t have any of the offices’ suggestions, which led Hugh to feel as if this meeting was premature. He also mentioned that the Policy needs to be separated between Elected Officials and Employees.
Chad then asked who they needed to send their suggestions to and Jim told him to send it directly to Steve Cohen, the Policy Coordinator. Chad then asked for contact information for Steve and asked if he could make sure all the Elected Officials received it as well.
Kacie and Chad then discussed all the Statutes and Policies that they must follow and have always gone by.
Shelli White had some concern about the free time and internet access. She stated she already must follow guidelines from the State, plus her employees don’t have the downtime anyway.
Chad then brought up holiday pay and spoke over certain hours that have been missed in previous pay and pointed out how this policy stated that the employee will be paid what they were expected to work, not just an eight-hour workday. He has employees that work 12-hour shifts and used to get paid for only 8 hours, so he was thankful for that. He then agreed with Kacie and stated he did not disagree with the earlier statements she had made.
Kacie then began getting upset, stating that she is passionate about her job and it would be more beneficial if she was asked to be involved instead of receiving an email of this policy and asked to review it. Chad told her that he wasn’t trying to undermine anyone, he was simply explaining things to help her understand, she stated it made more sense now that they had a conversation about it, but felt that this meeting was easily had and wondered why there wasn’t a meeting with all Elected Officials in the first place instead of just a select few who then donated money to help pay for the Policy and the others had no say. She continued to express her annoyance that she has to find out everything on Facebook or an email after the fact. She then removed herself from the meeting.
Jim then asked if everyone could review the policy and mark things that need to be added or changed and reminded them that he will get everyone Steves’ information so they can work with him directly.
Robert Rosendahl, with Walnut Township, came in and checked on the status of a tube that he had been concerned over previously. Trent told him that Road and Bridge has been by the spot he’s concerned about and informed him that they plan to get it fixed by mid-June. Robert then wrote down contact information for the members on the township and continued to speak with the Commission over several other things.
