Every email, note and document event between June 12, 2025 and August 27, 2026, in order, with the quotations reproduced verbatim. This is the underlying record the rest of this site summarizes.
Greg Standard worked for Seward County for thirty-seven years — volunteer firefighter, Advanced EMT, hazmat technician, storm-tracking lead, and finally Emergency Management Director. Because of the fire and emergency work, twenty years of his service were earned under KP&F, the Kansas pension system for police officers and firefighters. KP&F pays a substantially higher benefit than the regular KPERS system that covers other public employees, and it is earned by doing the dangerous part of the job.
In June 2025, weeks before Standard retired, one county commissioner contacted the state retirement system on his own initiative and questioned whether that work qualified. He did not bring it to the Board. He did not tell the County Administrator — and told the state agency he was deliberately not telling her. Acting on the single job description he supplied, KPERS moved all twenty years out of KP&F and into regular KPERS. Standard’s first retirement check was cut by more than 25 percent — more than a quarter of the benefit he had spent his career earning.
It took the County Administrator, human resources, payroll, the Sheriff, a state representative, and three senior KPERS officials to undo it. Standard’s KP&F service was restored in full — all twenty years, the same figures KPERS’s own records had shown before Commissioner Stanton ever contacted them. Nothing he alleged survived review. He was wrong about the job, wrong about the service, and wrong about the man, and the only lasting thing his inquiry produced was the weeks a thirty-seven-year employee spent not knowing whether the pension he had earned would be there.
Six findings, each with the date to check it against in the entries that follow.
Nobody at Seward County asked the state to look at Greg Standard’s pension. KPERS held no job description for him at all. The description it decided on arrived from Commissioner Stanton on June 12, 2025, sent from a private business email account and signed “Todd Stanton, Seward County Commissioner District 1.” Five weeks after the decision was made, KPERS was still writing to the County asking for descriptions it had never had.Check it against: June 12; August 12, 2:45 PM
The County had three job descriptions on file for him: Emergency Management Director, Advanced EMT, and Fire Deputy Chief. The last two are the ones that describe riding the ambulance and commanding fire scenes. KPERS received the first only, and moved twenty years of service out of the firefighter pension because that one description showed “few actual ‘on-call,’ EMS-related activities.” It did not see the other two until August 12.Check it against: June 12; August 12, 4:59 PM
“County Admin was not informed because of concerns about how the benefits occurred in the first place.” April Warden held the complete personnel file — the records that eventually corrected the error. Keeping her out is what allowed a decision to be made on one document. She was not merely left uninformed: by July 24 she had learned that Commissioner Stanton had asked Sheriff Gene Ward to file criminal charges against her over the same matter. The Sheriff told him he could not simply file charges, and the KPERS attorney the Sheriff then consulted said there was nothing criminal in it at all.Check it against: June 25, 10:30 AM; July 24
He told KPERS to copy the determination letter openly to the County’s Human Resources office — and to send his own copy by blind copy, so his name or email address would not appear on it. That was not the only such step. He used a private business email account rather than his county address; he told KPERS the County Administrator was not being informed; and when KPERS asked him on July 7 whether there was “anything you would like me to say or not say,” he answered the next morning by directing the agency’s notification to a junior HR employee rather than to the Administrator — an employee he described as the one “who we know was not involved in how his benefits were arranged.” When Human Resources telephoned KPERS to ask who had raised the question, they were told only that a Seward County caller had asked to remain anonymous.Check it against: July 8, 10:04 AM; June 25; July 9–15
A payroll clerk gave it to him; he found it himself in the budget; he would not say because someone told him in confidence; a county employee brought it to him. The second of those he gave knowing it would be repeated in Mr. Standard’s appeal. See the table near the end of this document.Check it against: June 25; July 28; July 29; August 27, 2026
KPERS ran both figures the same afternoon, with and without the KP&F service, and the gap was more than 25 percent. That is more than a quarter of his pension, for the rest of his life, decided in under four weeks without anyone at the County being asked.Check it against: July 8, 12:21 PM
Every entry below is drawn from KPERS records concerning Greg Standard's membership — five email threads produced by KPERS General Counsel Laurie McKinnon — together with April Warden's contemporaneous notes, the County's position descriptions as supplied by the County Administrator, and Commissioner Stanton's published column. Quotations are verbatim, including original spelling. Where an entry summarizes rather than quotes, no quotation marks are used. Timestamps are as they appear in the messages. One entry is not an email but a file event, drawn from the metadata of the job description document.
The second county employee named in several messages is not identified here. He no longer works for the County, and there is no public purpose in naming him.
morningTelephone call, McKinnon to Stanton — referenced, not in writing
Stanton’s email that afternoon opens: “Thanks, again, for your phone call this morning.” No written record of this call is in the production.
2:30 PMThe Emergency Management Director job description file is created and savedDocument event
Embedded metadata: created and last modified 2025-06-12 19:30 UTC (2:30 p.m. Central), revision 2, zero editing time, last saved by a Word profile named “Todd.”
2:43 PMStanton → McKinnon, KPERS — “Seward County KP&F Issue”
“I am attaching the County job description for our Emergency Management Director. The job description is the same for both involved parties, one was supposed to replace the first but the first has yet to actually retire.”
Thirteen minutes after the file was saved. Also in this email: “It is the opinion of our rural fire chief and county sheriff that neither is eligible for KP&F,” and “I have records of all KP&F employees with figures from payroll for 2022 thru last month but I think you would have the same data. If you need mine, I can send that to you.” And: “Standard was previously rural fire but that was ten or more years ago” — disclosing the prior fire service, characterizing it as stale, and not supplying the Fire description that covered it. Sent from a private business address; signed “Todd Stanton, Seward County Commissioner District 1.” Also relayed: “I’m told but have not verified this has been coordinated with a workman’s comp claim for carpal tunnel syndrome.”
1:30 PMMcKinnon → Stanton
“I talked to my boss about this and he was in agreement with me. We’ll take a look at everything and I’ll get back to you.”
7:17 AMStanton → McKinnon
“Just a note that if you determine things are in error and need correction, when you let me know notification is going to the individuals/county admin, Sheriff Gene Ward will commence an investigation as to how this occurred (and pass off to KBI if he feels that is best).”
2:50 PMMcKinnon → Stanton
“I’m out all week at a conference, so I won’t be able to do anything with this until next week.”
7:18 AMStanton → McKinnon
“Greg Standard has unexpectedly announced his intention to retire effective June 30 of this year. I believe he started the paperwork on that late yesterday.”
10:20 AMMcKinnon → Stanton
“Todd – do you think this is an 11th hour attempt to retire with KP&F benefits, or just a coincidence?”
10:30 AMStanton → McKinnon
“I don’t know. He shouldn’t know of the issue from the involved parties on this end—HR (one person somewhat new to job and did not know he should not be getting KP&F), payroll (we have one payroll clerk who provided the data for recent years), Sheriff Ward, Rural Fire Chief Barkley. County Admin was not informed because of concerns about how the benefits occurred in the first place—in a budget meeting just this week county admin again lumped in emergency management as getting KP&F vs regular KPRS.”
Two things are established by this one message. First, Stanton names his source for the KP&F payroll data: the County’s single payroll clerk. Thirty-four days later, asked that same question directly by the County Administrator in front of the Chairman, the Sheriff and Brock Theiner, he would refuse to answer — saying people come to him in confidence and he would not break that confidence. He had already given the answer to a state agency in Topeka. Second, he states that the County Administrator was deliberately not informed. She was the official holding the complete personnel file, and on August 12 she would ask KPERS the very question he answers here.
10:42 AMMcKinnon → Stanton
“I can tell you from my review of the position descriptions, they are not EMT/EMS positions as defined by the statute. Regardless of when he retires, we can make sure it’s a KPERS retirement and he would be welcome to initiate a formal appeal, which would be to KPERS, not Seward County.”
The stated basis for the determination — the narrative duties, not the form fields.
Standard’s retirement takes effect.
8:50 AMStanton → McKinnon
“Just wanted to check that Greg Standard’s retirement was going thru KPERS and not KP&F since he retired June 30. I don’t believe the Sheriff would commence investigation on how this happened until I gave him word everything had been settled at your end. At what point in the process would excess contributions come back to Seward County and who would be notified regarding that?”
1:58 PMMcKinnon → Stanton
“It looks like Mr. Standard is attempting to retire from KP&F. I’ve asked the Retirement Unit to hold his application for the time being. Tomorrow morning, I’m meeting with our CFO and Chief Benefits Officer to go over everything. I will likely write a formal letter to Mr. Standard explaining everything to him and copy you. If there’s anything you would like me to say or not say, please let me know!”
The invitation. His answer is the next morning’s email: copy Human Resources openly, blind-copy him, and nothing to the County Administrator.
10:04 AMStanton → McKinnon
“I found out last Thursday that Mr. Standard oddly filed much of his own retirement paperwork about three weeks before he told admin he was retiring. Most of his paperwork was not filed by HR/Payroll technician people who normally process retirement paperwork. Can you openly copy the formal letter to our HR person (who we know was not involved in how his benefits were arranged): Rosa Conley, Human Resources … Please send my copy bcc electronically.”
Also: “Once the Greg Standard issue is resolved, we need to look at [a second employee] who is also being provided KP&F though he does not meet the criteria for this.”
Compare with the June 25 entry above. There he reported that Mr. Standard had announced his retirement and “started the paperwork on that late yesterday.” Here the paperwork comes three weeks before the announcement — and he says he learned it on “last Thursday,” July 3, nine days after reporting it himself. The two accounts cannot both be true.
11:09 AMMcKinnon → Stanton
“I can send the letter to anyone you like! I’ll let you look at it before I send it. I just met with the benefits and fiscal folks here and they’re going to calculate Mr. Standard’s benefits with 6 years of KPERS and 20 of KP&F and then 26 of KPERS only.”
11:49 AMDirk Camilletti, Chief Benefits Officer → Kris Holm, McKinnonKPERS internal, High importance
“I talked with Lisa about processing Mr. Standards July 1 retirement application as if all of his service was tied solely to KPERS with 26.25 years of service.”
12:21 PMLisa Ngole, Deputy Benefits Manager → Camilletti, Holm, McKinnon
KPERS set out both calculations in writing that afternoon — the benefit with his combined service, and the smaller one with his KPERS service alone. The figures themselves are Mr. Standard's private business and are not reproduced here; the difference between them is more than 25 percent.
The financial harm, quantified by KPERS: a reduction of more than 25 percent of his monthly benefit.
3:06 PMMcKinnon → Ngole, Camilletti, Holm
“Okay, guys. Here’s my draft letter. Please comment using notes rather than tracked changes.”
5:29 PMCamilletti → McKinnon
“Laurie – no suggestions or feedback. The letter is great.”
9:11 AMKathleen Billings → McKinnon and othersKPERS internal
“Our determination is that he’s retiring under KPERS. So, we move forward with our determination. If he appeals, we’ll keep paying him is KPERS benefit unless he wins.”
11:44 AMNgole → Wagner, Shumway
“Mr. Standard should have all his service in KPERS. Could you please correct this member’s record so that we can move forward with his retirement?”
1:43 PMBillings → Shumway and others
“We will be refunding the difference in the contributions but NOT YET. Mr. Standard was given his due process rights and he’ll have 60 days to appeal.”
KPERS notifies Standard that the Director of Emergency Management position is not eligible for KP&F and that his KP&F service has been changed to KPERS service. His first retirement payment is reduced.
8:59 AMMcKinnon → Shumway and others
“I have very briefly spoken with the HR lady there. Would you like her email address? Her name is Rosa Conley.”
Rosa Conley is the HR contact Stanton had nominated on July 8.
during this weekWarden on vacation; KPERS letter arrives at the CountyCounty
Per Warden’s notes: the letter stated that Seward County had reached out to ask whether the Emergency Management Director position was eligible for KPERS or KP&F, and requested the County’s position description. HR Generalist Rosa Conley contacted KPERS, knowing neither HR nor Administration had made the call, and was told only that “an employee of Seward County called and asked to remain anonymous.”
1:33 PMBillings → Seele, McKinnon and others
“He hasn’t appealed yet. So, if there is time, can we retire him as KPERS and start his benefit this month still, please?”
Warden learns of Stanton’s approach to Sheriff WardCounty
Per Warden’s notes: she was advised that Stanton had asked Sheriff Gene Ward to file criminal charges against her for misappropriation of County funds, and had contacted a KPERS attorney. Ward told Stanton he could not simply file charges, but did speak to the KPERS attorney, who said there was nothing criminal — a clerical error of the kind that often arises over KPERS versus KP&F eligibility. Brock Theiner and Rosa Conley were in Warden’s office with Ward on speakerphone. That statement addressed the County’s handling of the enrollment, not Stanton’s own conduct.
11:42 AMShumway → Billings, McKinnonKPERS internal
“I received a phone call from April Warden this morning… Her questions were regarding how KPERS made the determination that Greg Standard was not eligible for KP&F membership. I informed her that I could not answer those questions… I did tell her that KPERS had been corresponding with Rosa Conley.”
12:03 PMMcKinnon → Stanton
“He is going to appeal and part of the narrative we will need to offer our judge is how we learned of his position not meeting the requirements for KP&F coverage. Do you have any thoughts? Also, I’m told I need to contact April Warden today. Please advise.”
3:22 PMStanton → McKinnon
“I came to learn of county funds being errantly paid at the KP&F rates for Mr Standard and [a second employee] while reviewing county budget items during our budgeting process. Neither employee appeared to meet the criteria for KP&F pension though payroll reports showed them both being given this coverage. I contacted you directly after discussing the matter with Sheriff Gene Ward.”
Compare with the June 25 email: here the account of how he learned is the budget process, with no mention of the payroll clerk who supplied the data.
4:10 PMMcKinnon → Shumway, Billings, cc Wagner
“Okay, everyone stop what they’re doing. Mr. Standard may lose a few years of KP&F service, but it’s unlikely he’ll lose it all. I just spoke with April and it appears something is going on here. I am waiting to receive position descriptions and other information from April.”
The turning point. Twenty-eight minutes after Stanton’s account, and after one conversation with the County Administrator.
11:02 AMMcKinnon → Alan Conroy, KPERS Executive Director
“Shannon Francis, representative of the 125th District, left a voice mail for me regarding Greg Standard, the EMS from Seward County whose retirement we’re trying to fix.”
4:23 PMStanton → McKinnon
“Not to drag you into the issue in Seward County further, but can you corroborate or refute a statement made this morning by the Seward County Administrator? She stated that during her conversation with you yesterday you said to her, ‘I should never have had a conversation with a county commissioner.’”
Meeting at the Administration Building — Warden, Brock Theiner, Chairman Scott Carr, Fire Chief Andrew Barkley and Commissioner Stanton; Sheriff Ward joined laterCounty
Per Warden’s notes. Barkley said Stanton had approached him with questions about Standard’s retirement. Warden reminded him Standard had worked as Assistant Fire Chief, took EMS calls as an AEMT, responded to HazMat calls and did storm tracking and disaster relief, and asked whether he had shared any of that with Stanton; she received no response. Stanton replied that Standard did not take enough calls, as a percentage of time, to receive KP&F. Stanton denied asking for charges against Warden — “those words did not come out of my mouth” — and Sheriff Ward, summoned to the meeting, verified that he had. Stanton said he would not apologize and would act the same way again, citing the KAC Commission Deskbook; Chairman Carr told him he has no authority as an individual commissioner and should have brought his concerns to the full Commission or asked for an executive session. Asked how he obtained his list of KP&F-covered employees, Stanton refused to say — people come to him in confidence and he would not break that confidentiality. Compare the June 25 entry above: thirty-four days earlier he had told KPERS the data came from the County’s one payroll clerk. He declined to tell his own County Administrator what he had already told a state agency.
10:47 AMMcKinnon → Stanton
“I have no recollection of saying that… but I might have said I should not have only spoken with you with respect to Mr. Standard’s retirement. My only job is to ensure Mr. Standard receives the service he has earned and that’s what I’m going to do.”
The last message between Stanton and McKinnon in this production.
McKinnon → WardenCounty notes
“Thus far, she felt that 2006-2016 is likely KP&F service as he had two positions that likely met the statutory standard and then 2020 and 2021 for the work he did with COVID.”
As recorded in Warden’s notes. McKinnon added that although she had originally said the position should be nearly all going out on calls, she had been looking into the federal definition of “public safety officer” and how EMS-style positions are handled in small communities, and that his weather-disaster duties apply as well.
Warden → McKinnon — letter setting out Standard’s full service history
Volunteer firefighter from March 22, 1988; part-time EMS from July 25, 1990; hired full-time on August 17, 1999 as BOTH Emergency Management Director and Assistant Rural Fire Chief; moved to Emergency Management Director alone on February 16, 2016 after a job-related injury ended his firefighting. Throughout, he continued taking EMS calls as an Advanced EMT, served as HazMat Technician, and ran the storm tracking team including mutual aid into the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. In 2020–2021 he ran COVID protocol, the Emergency Operations Center, the testing site, transitional housing and PPE procurement. He held two positions simultaneously for roughly seventeen years.
McKinnon → Warden
“When she made the first determination of KPERS versus KP&F service, she had no idea Greg held down two positions for many years. She stated we all just want Greg to get the service he earned and that’s the duty KPERS owes to him.”
The decision-maker’s own account: the fact that decided the question was not before her when she decided it.
2:45 PMMcKinnon → April Warden, County Administrator
“We’re reviewing information on Greg’s position at Seward County and the one thing we don’t have are any position descriptions from his time there. Do you have anything you can share?”
4:59 PMWarden → McKinnon, cc Conley, Meza, Theiner, Franco, Ralston, Standard
“Commissioner, Todd Stanton, was not acting on behalf of the Board of County Commissioners (as I understand he indicated) and has no authority as an individual commissioner to contest the retirement of a County employee.”
Also: “Commissioner Stanton has also shared he has a list of each employee that is covered under KP&F with the County, and he did not obtain that information from Seward County Administration or Human Resources. Can you tell us if he completed an open records request through KPERS/KP&F to obtain this information?” And: “I am also concerned that Commissioner Stanton is not a designated agent on our account.” The email carries THREE attachments: SC_EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT_DIRECTOR.docx (94K), SC_EMS_AEMT.docx (90K) and SC_FIRE_FIRE DEPUTY CHIEF.docx (96K). This is the first time KPERS receives the AEMT and Fire Deputy Chief descriptions — five weeks after the reclassification. Warden also notes that former Payroll and Benefits Coordinator Charlotte Hill had sent descriptions over when the County implemented KP&F, indicating an earlier set exists in the personnel file.
5:16 PMMcKinnon → Warden and the same recipients
“It was my understanding from the very beginning that Mr. Stanton was operating on behalf of the County. When I received the information from Mr. Stanton, along with the position description you said you’d never seen before, it was my job, then, to review the position, itself, to determine if it was covered under KPERS or KP&F. Because the description had few actual ‘on-call,’ EMS-related activities, it did not appear to be covered under KP&F in my experience.”
Also: “My error was not contacting you, specifically, to make sure KPERS was moving in the right direction. I take full responsibility for that.” And: “in 30 years of working as KPERS’ legal counsel, this has never happened to me.” Note that Warden had never seen the description Stanton supplied.
KPERS restores Standard’s KP&F service and recalculates his benefit to 20 years of KP&F and 6 years of KPERS — the same figures its records showed before June 2025.
Seward County Commission, regular meetingCounty
“…you’ve tried pressing criminal charges against April…” / “No, that was a false statement.” / “And I’m gonna stop you right there.” / “A false statement.” / “You tried getting criminal charges against her.”
Chairman Steven Helm and Commissioner Stanton, in open session, at 2:05:45 in the County’s video recording of the meeting. Stanton denies the request for charges and attempts to stop the Chairman; the Chairman restates it. The County’s transcript is produced by voice-to-text and is not the official minutes; the video is the record. https://sewardcountyks.new.swagit.com/videos/393954
Seward County Commission, regular meeting — Commission CommentsCounty
“At no time did I request the Sheriff go and arrest April Warden. At the time I was talking with the Sheriff, neither of us knew who might be responsible. I most certainly did say something along the lines of whoever was responsible should be prosecuted if this was in fact appropriate.”
The third account, and the first that is not a denial: he concedes telling the Sheriff that whoever was responsible should be prosecuted, and disputes only the name. Compare the June 25, 2025 entry above — seven weeks before that conversation he told KPERS the County Administrator was deliberately not informed “because of concerns about how the benefits occurred in the first place.”
“Seward County itself sends pension contribution records to KPERS. Why would records already had by KPERS be sent to KPERS? They have these records.”
KPERS did hold the County’s contribution records. It did not hold the position description, which is what the determination turned on, and which he attached to his own June 12, 2025 email. Also in this statement: the decision to contact KPERS “was made while consulting with the head of our county law enforcement”; the matter “appeared to involve over a hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money”; and “it is my fiduciary duty as a county commissioner to look out for the taxpayers.” https://sewardcountyks.new.swagit.com/videos/396423
Stanton — guest column, Liberal First (Seward County Publishing)
“I have no idea what has been the result of KPERS own investigation or Mr. Standard’s appeal regarding KPERS initial determination not in his favor which was based solely upon records KPERS had and the statutes which govern. To be clear, that determination was made by KPERS.”
“OPINION – Not only are accusations false, it is my job to question county expenditures,” answering the recall petition point by point. Also in the column: “I looked at a budget issue brought to my attention by a county employee”; “I obtained no records from KPERS”; “KPERS asked me if there was any reason to leave my name out of things” — adding that he had mentioned one of the two subjects owned a gun store, and that KPERS then left his name out; and “I have no animosity toward Greg Standard.” Warden’s notes record the opposite account of the same conversation: KPERS told Rosa Conley the caller “asked to remain anonymous.” Published at liberalfirst.com/…
Commissioner Stanton, KPERS, and the reclassification of Greg Standard's service · June 12, 2025 – August 27, 2026
Greg Standard held more than one position across thirty-seven years with the County. The three descriptions the County Administrator supplied on August 12, 2025 are for the Emergency Management Director, the Advanced Emergency Medical Technician, and the Fire Deputy Chief. Commissioner Stanton sent one of the three.
The two he did not send are, on their face, the emergency-service positions. The AEMT description sits in the EMS department, reports to the EMS Director, and its stated purpose is to provide “on-the scene basic and advanced emergency medical care… transporting sick and injured persons as needed”; its duties include listening to the radio and responding to emergency alarms, responding to emergency medical calls, and serving as attending AEMT in the ambulance. It requires Kansas AEMT certification. The Fire Deputy Chief description sits in the Fire department, reports to the Fire Chief, requires five years of full-time firefighter experience, and includes taking “personal command of firefighting activities at major fires and/or other catastrophic emergencies.”
KPERS counsel’s stated test was whether the description showed “few actual ‘on-call,’ EMS-related activities.” Applied to the Emergency Management Director description — the only one she had — that test produced a reclassification. Applied to the AEMT description, the same test points the other way. And KPERS did not hold the AEMT or Fire descriptions until August 12, five weeks after the determination was made.
Stanton sent one job description out of three. Either he left the other two out, or he did not know they existed. Either way it returns to the same failure: he did not work through the County’s own system to get the answer. He acted alone, on the material he had gathered himself, and asked a state agency to decide thirty-seven years of a man’s service credit on one document — while telling that agency the County Administrator was deliberately not being informed. The County’s records office holds all three descriptions and would have produced them on request, as it did the moment KPERS finally asked.
Warden’s notes close the gap the job descriptions alone left open. Standard held the Emergency Management Director post and the Assistant Rural Fire Chief post simultaneously from August 17, 1999 until February 16, 2016, and continued taking EMS calls as an Advanced EMT after that. KPERS counsel, once she had that history, told Warden on August 1, 2025 that 2006 to 2016 was likely KP&F service because he held two positions that likely met the statutory standard, and on August 4 that when she made the first determination she had no idea he held two positions for many years.
What remains for others to decide is whether either omitted position qualifies under the statute — a determination for KPERS and for counsel, not one the documents make on their own. What the record establishes is that the July 9 determination was made without the service history, and that KPERS began reversing course within days of receiving it.
Commissioner Stanton’s August 27, 2026 column states that the determination “was based solely upon records KPERS had and the statutes which govern.” The timeline above refutes that in the agency’s own words.
| Date | What the record says |
|---|---|
| Jun 12, 2025 | Stanton to McKinnon: “I am attaching the County job description for our Emergency Management Director.” He supplied the record. |
| Jun 25, 2025 | McKinnon: “from my review of the position descriptions, they are not EMT/EMS positions as defined by the statute.” Her conclusion rests on reviewing that description. |
| Jul 9, 2025 | KPERS executes the reclassification. |
| Aug 12, 2025 | McKinnon to Warden: “the one thing we don’t have are any position descriptions from his time there.” Five weeks after the decision, KPERS is still asking the County for descriptions. The only one it ever had was the one Stanton supplied. |
| Aug 12, 2025 | McKinnon to Warden: “When I received the information from Mr. Stanton, along with the position description you said you’d never seen before, it was my job, then, to review the position.” |
| Aug 4, 2025 | McKinnon to Warden: when she made the first determination “she had no idea Greg held down two positions for many years.” |
KPERS did not have the operative record. Stanton supplied it, and it was one of three — the one that did not describe the emergency-service work. The determination was formally KPERS’ own, which is all his second sentence establishes; what it was made on is the question.
One question has been put to Commissioner Stanton four times over fourteen months: how did he come to know that two county employees were receiving KP&F? He has answered it four different ways.
| Date | Asked by | His answer |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 25, 2025 | KPERS counsel | A county employee gave it to him — “payroll (we have one payroll clerk who provided the data for recent years)” |
| Jul 28, 2025 | KPERS counsel, needing the account for Mr. Standard’s appeal | He found it himself — “I came to learn of county funds being errantly paid at the KP&F rates … while reviewing county budget items during our budgeting process.” No employee mentioned. |
| Jul 29, 2025 | The County Administrator, in front of the Chairman, the Sheriff and Brock Theiner | He would not say. People come to him in confidence and he would not break that confidence. |
| Aug 27, 2026 | The public, in his newspaper column | A county employee gave it to him — “I looked at a budget issue brought to my attention by a county employee.” |
What cannot be reconciled:
The July 28 account and the other three. On June 25 and again in August 2026 he says the information came from someone else. On July 28 — told his answer would be repeated in Mr. Standard’s appeal — he says he found it himself in the budget, and no employee appears in it at all.
The July 29 refusal and all three. He declined to name a source five weeks after naming one to KPERS, and a year before naming one to the public.
The refusal and his own column. His column argues that which employees receive KP&F is “part of the public record and are available to anyone.” If that is so, there was no confidence to protect on July 29.
On July 24, 2025 the County Administrator learned that Commissioner Stanton had asked Sheriff Gene Ward to file criminal charges against her for misappropriation of County funds. He has since given three accounts of that, and they cannot be reconciled.
July 29, 2025 — to her face, privately.
“those words did not come out of my mouth. I think you better call Sheriff Ward and get him over here now.” Ward came, and per Warden’s notes verified that Stanton had asked him to file the charges. When Warden said the Sheriff was free to go, Stanton asked him to stay as a witness for himself. Commission Chairman Scott Carr and Brock Theiner were present; Fire Chief Barkley had been dismissed before this part of the meeting. All three of Warden, Carr and Theiner have since confirmed that Stanton asked for charges against the Administrator.
July 20, 2026 — in open session, denied outright.
Asked about it from the dais by Chairman Helm, he answered “No, that was a false statement,” repeated “A false statement,” and told the Chairman “And I’m gonna stop you right there.” The Chairman restated the accusation anyway.
August 17, 2026 — in open session, conceded in substance.
“At no time did I request the Sheriff go and arrest April Warden… I most certainly did say something along the lines of whoever was responsible should be prosecuted.” This is no longer a denial that he asked for a prosecution; it is a dispute about whom he named.
What cannot be reconciled:
The July 29, 2025 denial and the August 17, 2026 statement. In the first he did not say it at all. In the third he most certainly did say it. Both are his.
“Neither of us knew who might be responsible” and his own June 25, 2025 email. Seven weeks before the Sheriff conversation he told KPERS that the County Administrator was deliberately not being informed “because of concerns about how the benefits occurred in the first place” — a concern precise enough to keep one named official out of the matter.
The denials and three witnesses. Warden, Carr and Theiner each say he named the Administrator, and Warden’s contemporaneous notes record Sheriff Ward verifying it in the room.
Sheriff Ward has not been asked on the record and has said nothing publicly about any of this. Nothing here should be read as his account.
At the July 29, 2025 meeting Commissioner Stanton said he had read in the KAC Commission Deskbook that if he believed something was happening criminally he had authority to act as an individual commissioner. Warden’s notes record that nobody present recalled that being in the Deskbook, but that they did not have the resource in front of them at the time.
The Kansas County Commissioners Deskbook, published by the Kansas Association of Counties, says the opposite. From §1.3.1, page 10 of the 2025 edition:
“the ultimate authority in a county is vested in its duly constituted governing body when it is in a meeting and in open session”
“the Board that has the basic powers of counties, and the governing body does not legally exist except in an official meeting. When the Board is not in session, the individual members have no more legal authority than do private citizens.”
“the Attorney General has opined that an individual county commissioner does not have the authority to unilaterally examine an employee’s personnel records. However, the Board may inspect county personnel records if appropriate actions are taken at an open meeting.”
The search is complete. On September 13, 2026 every page of the 308-page 2025 edition was examined in full text, and no provision of any kind authorizes an individual commissioner to act alone where he believes criminal activity has occurred. Two qualifications belong with the finding. The edition examined is the 2025 edition, and whether the edition in circulation on July 29, 2025 was identical should be confirmed before the point is used in a filing. And the Deskbook is guidance published by an association, not statute — its force here is that Commissioner Stanton invoked it himself.
First, on McKinnon’s statement that Stanton “edited his version.” A forensic comparison of the document Stanton supplied against the County’s copy shows the differences are the signature of an automated file-format conversion — rebuilt form fields carrying a generic name, lost table-cell merges, paragraph-mark formatting shifted onto the wrong paragraphs, and a stripped header, footer and county logo. The narrative text of the two documents is identical. Nothing in the file indicates hand-editing of content, and we are not claiming that he edited it. What the comparison does establish is that the copy KPERS received was degraded and incomplete: 103 of its 428 checkboxes were blank, including the designation that the position supervises employees.
Second, on causation. McKinnon states twice — on June 25 and again on August 12 — that her conclusion rested on the description showing few on-call, EMS-related activities. That is the narrative duty language, which is identical in both copies. On this record, the blank checkboxes are therefore not what produced the determination. What produced it, by her own account, was proceeding on the word of a single commissioner without contacting the County Administrator, under time pressure created by a July 1 retirement date.
Both points argue for keeping the two strands separate. The document comparison establishes that what KPERS received was not the County’s document. The emails establish who initiated the matter, from what address, on what information, and with what instructions about who should and should not be told.
If you want the argument rather than the archive, the short version is on The Record page. If you want the underlying documents themselves, they are on the evidence page.