City, county have different views of Kansas Senate Bill 405

Fort Scott and Bourbon County officials have opposing views on Kansas Senate Bill No. 405 which would change the way governing bodies publish legal notices.

Introduced into the Committee on Ways and Means on Jan. 21, the bill was created to help relieve some of the financial burden some cities and counties face across the state concerning the publishing of legal notices in the newspaper by offering the alternative to post notices on the city's, county's, or school district's Web site.

Bourbon County Clerk Joanne Long describes the growing cost as, "astronomical." Long said the county spends about $15,000 each year on legal publications and city officials said the city spent more than $16,000 in 2009.

Fort Scott City Manager Joe Turner said he believes that it is in the city's best interest to continue publishing legal notices in the newspaper.

"My personal preference, I would rather use the newspaper because I think more people read the newspaper," Turner said. "I think more people read the newspaper than read the [city's Web site]."

Turner said he could see the city using the Internet for legal publications if budget cuts became, "extreme."

However, Long said the county sees it differently.

"So many people don't take papers anymore or the papers are just an online paper that it is changing the way things are doing," she said.

Long said that the Kansas County Officials Association is lobbying in Topeka to promote the bill and present two possible compromises. The first being that the first legal publication would be published in the official newspaper and the other two publications would be done on the official Web site; and the other setting a standard rate for publications across the state.

According to Long, this is not the first time such a discussion has gone on in Topeka and she thinks the bill has made it farther already than in previous attempts.

"I know it's a long shot, we've tried it a couple of times," she said. "It will be a hard hill to climb ... times are changing and the laws have to move with them."