Dan Deming                 Steve Becker

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Three pieces of legislation being pushed by County Commissioner Dan Deming in what he believes will make county government more efficient and better able to respond when problems arise were announced Wednesday morning in a joint news conference with State Representative Steve Becker and the commissioner.

Deming asked that three pieces of legislation he’s pushing be put into bill form by Representative Becker. These would allow county commissions to appoint rather than elect county treasurers, county clerks and county register of deeds; set minimum qualifications to hold office of county treasurer and set county commission term limits.

Deming tells us that each proposal, if passed by the legislature, wouldn’t make any changes on how treasurers are chosen or how commissioner terms are set unless approved by voters during a countywide general election.

“Right now, counties lack authority to appoint treasurers or set basic qualifications to avoid problems we have seen recently in Reno, Barton and other counties,” Deming said.

Both Deming and Representative Becker agree that the appointive bill would be a major step toward modernizing county government and allow them to correct problems much more quickly. Deming bases his thoughts on what he’s observed over the years at the local level. He says that these three positions are basically administrative, not policy making positions, similar to what they have with city government who are not elected.

The treasurer’s office has been hampered with problems since Jan Hull was elected, but Deming says she probably wouldn’t be affected, even if they impose minimum qualifications. By the time the change would come, she would have three years of experience. “The treasurer handles multiple millions of tax payer dollars and says choosing that person on the basis of popularity as opposed to bookkeeping and business qualifications makes no sense,” Deming said.

One thing that we mentioned over expanding the county commission, Deming says he also wants to push, but corrected us when we said that also needed legislative approval. He says that is already on the books, however, would still need to be voted on before the commission could expand to five members. He would like to see that put on the ballot during the presidential election in 2016.