A member of the Campbell County Cemetery District Board of Trustees is sounding the alarm over what he believes are improper payouts to several Gillette-based nonprofit groups.
Board Treasurer Dean Vomhof has served on the board since he was elected in 2020 and told Cowboy State Daily he was recently surprised to learn the board allocates about $10,000 a year to Energy Capital Economic Development (ECED) and about $1,150 per year to the Campbell County Chamber of Commerce.
The cemetery district also has sent a total of $5,000 to women’s advocacy group Happy Girls Don’t Do That, he said.
These taxpayer-funded payouts have nothing to do with cemetery operations, Vomhoff said. While he has tried to raise his concerns with board members, Vomhof said they've have fallen on deaf ears.
“In January, I go to all the board members and say, ‘This is not right, funding these nonprofits, spending cemetery money on these nonprofits,’” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I bring it up in meetings and say ‘this isn’t good,’ and before you know it, there’d be another check for $1,500.”
Cemetery Board President Jim Hastings also sits on the board of all three nonprofits, Vomhof said, saying that may represent a conflict of interest.
Despite this, Vomhof said his fellow board trustees all voted in favor of giving money to the groups. He doesn’t have a gripe with the groups, just that taxpayers expect the money they pay to the cemetery district to be used for cemetery business.
While the money represents a small portion of the cemetery district's $44 million budget, Vomhof said this money would be better used for cemetery beautification and hiring maintenance workers.
“It might be a very small amount of money, but it still isn’t right what we’re doing,” he said.
Rusty Bell, CEO of ECED, told Cowboy State Daily its cooperation with the cemetery district is beneficial for all parties involved.
“The decision for the cemetery district to fund ECED is a board decision to fund the entity that will continue to work to stabilize the county mil levy through its work,” Bell wrote in an email. “ECED prioritizes our work toward working to co-use our industrial areas and utilize the resources that we have. We work to expand those assets and resources to create jobs and increase the counties assessed valuation.
“The cemetery district receives a mil levy for their funding,” Bell added. “Supporting the only entity that works to stabilize/grow the economy in Campbell County makes sense to me.”
Neither Happy Girls Don’t Do That nor the Campbell County Chamber of Commerce responded to Cowboy State Daily requests for comment by the time this story was published.
Like a Good Neighbor
Hastings justified the payouts to trustees by highlighting the collective good the nonprofit groups do in the community.
In an August letter to the board’s trustees, Hastings explained a rising tide lifts all boats.
“When the whole community needs something, EVERYONE in the community needs to pitch in, because EVERYONE is a stakeholder,” the letter reads. “When they all pitch in — as with the Energy Capital Economic Development membership — what we have set is something called a ‘community standard.’”
“This is a community standard in which we must participate,” it continues.
Hastings told Cowboy State Daily via text message that the expenses have been included in the Cemetery Board’s budget for years. The board’s budget is reviewed line by line annually and is always open to public input.
He also highlighted the fact that board members had the opportunity to vote on the expenses, which were approved on a 5-1 vote.
The board’s expenditures to the Campbell County Chamber of Commerce and Energy Capitol Economic Development are membership fees, which other local government agencies and companies also pay, he said.
“Happy Girls Don't Do That is a wonderful organization dedicated to positivity and working to reduce bullying and the instance of suicide among young girls,” he wrote. “We pay them to put our QR code and web address on their materials and advertise the availability of our meeting rooms and our gardens, not just for funeral-related activities but also for family and community events.”
The board’s marketing consultant, Hastings added, verifies that these expenses generate the marketing it is paying for.
“We have an amazing organization with the best staff anyone could ask for,” Hastings wrote. “We plan 50 years ahead, we are careful with our expenditures, we invest wisely, and virtually everything we do is on our website and open to the public with the exception of the rare executive session.”
Cemetery Board Trustee Steve Urman was one of the members who voted in favor of funding the nonprofits.
He told Cowboy State Daily these expenses represent a show of support to the taxpayers the board depends on. These decisions, he said, are a proactive move to garner support from a slowly deteriorating tax base.
There are no laws, he added, that restrict the board’s ability to use its revenue to fund local nonprofits.
“We’ve always done something a little different as far as cemeteries go,” he said. “We have a concert series in the cemetery through the summer months. I think we’re the only cemetery that has anything like that.”
Urman added that nonessential services, such as the cemetery, will be the first to feel funding shortages in the event that tax dollars begin to dry up. He added that at any point voters can decide to disapprove these budget items if they no longer deem them necessary.
“It’s not the responsibility of the cemetery to do these things, it’s being a good neighbor with the rest of our community,” Urman said.
Not Your Job
Campbell County Commissioner Scott Clem told Cowboy State Daily that this was the first he had heard of the cemetery district funding local nonprofits.
Those payouts may potentially violate some state statutes, he said.
“Certainly, first hearing of this, it strikes me as odd,” Clem said. “I wonder if the appropriations they are making are in keeping with their mission, their objectives, as a political subdivision, which is to provide for the cemetery.”
There are other political subdivisions throughout the county dedicated to supporting these community initiatives, the commissioner continued. The cemetery district is not one of them.
These groups were formed to create a separation of power among political entities, Clem said. "Their responsibilities are therefore hyper specific and not intended for broader community development initiatives.
He added that it may be worthwhile to bring up the cemetery district's nonprofit expenses to his fellow county commission members as a potential abuse of taxpayer dollars.
“That is not something that, in my opinion — and without looking at the statues — that falls within the scope of the cemetery district,” Clem said. “I’m hesitant to say definitively without actually having examined this more thoroughly that this is a misuse of funds, but it certainly makes me question if it is a misuse of funds.
“From one perspective, I think it’s appropriate to ask some questions."
State Sen. Troy McKeown, R- Gillette, said he had heard from Vomhof about the nonprofit expenses and told Cowboy State Daily they are a direct result of an overinflated cemetery budget that needs to be trimmed. He specifically referred to the expenses as a “waste of taxpayer money.”
When asked to respond to Hasting’s argument that the expenses help support the cemetery’s tax base, McKeown said such a justification does not hold up, especially when considering Hasting’s involvement on the boards of each group.
“You can quote me as going, ‘Ha ha ha ha ha,’” he said. “I mean come on. We’re tying so much money up. It’s just getting goofy."
Jackson Walker can be reached at walker@cowboystatedaily.com.
