[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:11] Welcome to Tuesday, July 15, 2025, meeting please silence your cell phones, pages, and other electronic commission, communication devices.
[0:21] The genders and speaker request forms are located at the back of the chambers for anybody who wants to speak filling up, bring it up front, and we'll get you on the, we'll have a call over, we got the Gary Druse on zoom today, so we will do a roll call and determination of a quorum, Kara, can you handle that for us, please?
[0:42] Sure.
[0:44] Dirt.
[0:45] Here.
[0:46] Drose.
[0:48] Here.
[0:49] Chadcock.
[0:50] Here.
[0:51] Ross Connect.
[0:52] Here.
[0:52] Way from back.
[0:55] That gives us a quorum.
[0:56] So we will have a moment of silent reflection from Ron Ross Connect today.
[1:02] Thank you, Mr. Ron.
[1:20] Thank you.
[1:21] I pledge.
[1:39] We have a pretty robust agenda today, so if we can keep everybody on task and on track, I would greatly appreciate that.
[1:47] So number five, a review, and approve the agenda.
[1:52] I'm a motion from Hacker.
[1:55] Second from Dirty, approve the agenda on favor say aye.
[1:58] Aye.
[1:59] Opposed.
[2:00] Opposed.
[2:01] The same sign.
[2:02] Hearing none, motion carries.
[2:06] The consent agenda, the Board of Commissioners uses the consent agenda.
[2:09] The act on non-controversial and routine items.
[2:14] The consent agenda is acted upon by one motion.
[2:17] and vote of the board.
[2:18] I, as maybe, remove from the extended and placed on the regular agenda
[2:22] at the request of a board member or a citizen, the Cassenta Genica
[2:25] contains the following items.
[2:27] So do we have anybody from the audience that wants to remove anything
[2:30] from the Cassenta Genica?
[2:31] Okay, see and none.
[2:32] Do we have anybody from the commission that would like to remove
[2:36] something from the consent agenda?
[2:38] Mr. Chair, yes, Mr. Roskinac?
[2:41] Item C. Item C. Item C will be removed from the agenda. Approved the vouchers in the
[2:48] amount of 1909. Any other items? So if we would entertain a motion, removing C and
[2:55] improving the others, I'll make the motion, Mr. Chair.
[2:59] Second, I have a motion from Mr. Ross Connect to approve the consent agenda. Excluding item
[3:05] see a second by Commissioner Durrall and Faber say I oppose same sign. Hearing none, motion,
[3:15] carries. We'll go on to item number C, approve the vouchers in the amount of one million
[3:20] 909, 365, 53. Mr. Ross Connect, you have the floor, sir. Mr. Chair, I'm still getting
[3:26] used to the diligent system, but I noticed that there's not an attachment on item C that
[3:32] So it was a breakdown of the vouchers.
[3:36] So I just wanted to point that up.
[3:41] If I may.
[3:42] Mr. Chair, that was an oversight.
[3:44] We did get it posted publicly,
[3:46] but it did not get attached to the geologen platform.
[3:48] It is on there.
[3:49] Now, if you refresh your screens, but I'm sorry about that.
[3:52] No, just want to thank you for calling that on.
[3:54] Commissioner.
[3:55] Drows Connect.
[3:56] We have a motion to approve.
[3:59] See?
[3:59] It's a one move.
[4:00] Second.
[4:01] Well, a motion from Commissioner.
[4:02] I was asking that second by Hadcock all on favor say I I oppose same sign hearing none motion carries will move on to item seven items from the public per SDCO 125 one so I don't have it
[4:18] we have a speaker request on that. We do have one. So speakers on this section will be recorded
[4:26] in a minutes by name and area of interest. So Dale, Busy, if you would mind coming forward
[4:31] and then you hear Dale, you can come forward and just give us your name and address and then we'll
[4:39] give you some time to explain what you would like to talk to us about. So we know action taken
[4:44] day, but we can definitely consider your thoughts.
[4:49] Is this sign?
[4:53] Yes.
[4:53] You're free to go.
[4:54] Well, it catches me.
[4:56] My name is Dale Boos on 11.
[5:00] One Creek side view Avenue, Rapid City, South Dakota.
[5:06] And I would like to talk to you today, be
[5:10] in your talking about your budget, on what you're spending, on using these computerized tabulators,
[5:19] versus going to hand count. So I put some numbers together. And in the 2023 and 2024 election
[5:30] cycle, you have spent with ESNS, $164,000. You had $72,100 ballots. I didn't narrow it down
[5:47] to the last one, I just rounded it out. So anyway, to hand count the ballots, we've done
[5:55] time trials, and if you have 11 issues on a ballot, you can count 100 ballots in an hour.
[6:06] And if you have five people working that table, then you pay them 20 dollars an hour,
[6:17] that's
[6:25] 100 ballots, so that would have cost the county $70,000, $1,100, but you spent $64,000.
[6:38] So just quick math, that's $92,000 more than need to get the same results.
[6:51] I thought you might be interested in that. You may not know what you're spending on this.
[6:59] Every county does this. And so I put some numbers together for the state.
[7:09] Now going back to that 11 issues. So if you get six issues, it's 50 cents a ballot.
[7:15] We never have 11 issues on a primary election.
[7:22] We might have three, maybe four,
[7:27] so you can kind of do a numbers in your head, but the state
[7:31] was a hole had 542,500 ballots total. So, but the ballot, 542,500 dollars. They spent
[7:51] was ESMS 1.8 million dollars. Now you take the difference and you come up with the state
[8:04] spent $1.25 million more than they should have. That's substantial.
[8:17] And Pennyton County
[8:20] helped contribute to that deficit.
[8:26] I'm asking you to seriously consider to go to hand
[8:33] out our ballots. It's transparent. The money stays local.
[8:42] And U.S. and S, you know, they
[8:46] see everything is proprietary. You can't even get into the machines to check out
[8:55] through legitimate.
[8:59] And they say that they're proprietary to trade secrets. Is that what
[9:07] we need? Trade secrets in our election? I think not.
[9:17] You know, we need to go back to
[9:22] counting our ballots in our precincts.
[9:28] We don't need to bring them to a centralized
[9:30] location. Now you've got a big deal if you want a hand count. You've got 48 precincts.
[9:41] Yeah, and they all count. That's so in time. Meet County County ballots till 6 o'clock
[9:51] in the morning with the tabulators. I can guarantee you if they hand counted.
[10:00] Till six o'clock in the morning, you know if they would say, you know, we got to find a better way to do this.
[10:10] But do you hear that with those machines? No. So common sense to me is, you can get the same job done for way less money. Now you put your budget together here.
[10:23] to me it should be a common sense decision and if you continue using those tabulators my
[10:33] question to you as who's making you do this
[10:41] I know you guys are up here and get voted
[10:45] in because you have common sense
[10:50] without a doubt
[10:54] you know we never voted these tabulators
[10:58] as public. They were forced upon us and now we can't get rid of them. What would that tell
[11:08] you if you weren't sitting on the board? It's a big concern. I thank you for your time. Thank you
[11:17] for coming forward. I think that concludes public comment.
[11:27] We will go to items from buildings and
[11:29] around conceptual planning, county building and self-robbing.
[11:34] Let me speak.
[11:35] I did a nice late.
[11:36] Oh, okay.
[11:42] I'm a sign in.
[11:43] Okay.
[11:43] Syndicac, I have a business and building downtown Rapid City.
[11:48] Sure, I need.
[11:49] And I am concerned about how money is being spent and pertaining to the tabulators.
[11:59] There's a lot more money being spent that needs to be.
[12:02] So, I would just add that I think it's very important to get rid of these tabulators on a security viewpoint as well, because they're not secure, contrary to what everybody's been told they're not.
[12:22] I do have a graph that I printed out before I came if anybody would like to see this on the expenses that anything county.
[12:33] Thank
[12:38] you.
[12:41] And you know the fact that Tulsi Gabbard is putting together a task force to get to the bottom of the integrity of our elections says a lot.
[12:52] So, I hope everybody takes all that into consideration and considers if they want to keep doing business with ES and S in the future, spending more money and making the voters less and less sure about whether or not they're both counts.
[13:18] Thank you.
[13:19] Thank you.
[13:21] Okay, is anybody else or we'll, okay? Thank you, and we'll have Mr. Davis.
[13:36] He can't live without that, man.
[13:39] We're all feeling for you. I need to gather. You guys got a tether for me.
[13:46] I had them from building a grounds conceptual planning presentation for county buildings and properties.
[13:53] Mr. Davis for sale.
[13:55] on Bill Jin, or is it on Bill Jin?
[13:56] You can do it on Bill Jin, or it's also on.
[13:58] I'll go ahead and let you.
[14:00] I'm better at it.
[14:01] It displays better on Bill Jin.
[14:23] Can you just a brief moment here?
[14:44] All right.
[14:44] Good morning, Commissioner's Davis Pursail, Director of Buildings and Grounds,
[14:47] for Pennyton County.
[14:49] I'm going to go through a little bit of a presentation here
[14:52] at the beginning on some of our needs as a county, mainly facility
[14:56] related staffing.
[15:00] At base stop of different data that I've collected over the last few months, and then we'll talk about, you know, potentially looking at consolidating some properties or see what direction you guys want to go.
[15:18] So why we're revisiting the data? Just want to make sure we're making informed transitions as the con course building opens up in the fall and then provide data back to recommendations for future space planning,
[15:31] for Pennington County.
[15:34] The BKB study, I'm going to refer to this a lot.
[15:38] I did not include it in the here because it is a,
[15:42] there's a lot of data in that that I've also used.
[15:46] As part of my research here, but what the BKB study did well,
[15:50] it identified that we needed some, you know,
[15:53] we had some space needs.
[15:54] It did provide a lot of future facing projections
[15:58] and it brought attention to long-term planning for the county.
[16:01] Where it fell short, and I've heard this for multiple departments, that it just lacked
[16:06] deeper collaboration within department leadership, meaning some of the meetings took place
[16:14] without some of the leadership there, or there wasn't a lot of referencing back to the data
[16:21] that they provided to talk about once they presented it, and then also it over-assimated
[16:26] population growth and staffing needs and we'll go over that.
[16:30] So first slide, this is the 2040 population projections that BKV had.
[16:37] They projected 147,300, that's a 27% growth from their study was in 2022.
[16:46] We do have updated revised projections from light cast and elevate as well as just some other
[16:53] of metrics that you can use online, that show, we're sitting between 1.36 and 1.40 for
[17:01] the projected 24 population projections. And obviously, this, I'll continue to refine this
[17:07] as the data becomes available. So this just breaks it down for a little better context. You
[17:15] can see here the blue line is BKB. I couldn't find their start, like exactly what they had
[17:22] for 2025.
[17:23] But if you put this in on this graph, you can see they at least had us at 120,000 or higher
[17:29] already in 2025 with the total population at 147,000 by 2040.
[17:37] And then if you take, if you look at these orange red lines, however, they come up on your
[17:42] sheet, you can see down at the bottom, the lower line is based off of a 59 or sorry, a .59% growth.
[17:51] And then the middle line is 0.78% population growth and then the top line is 0.97 population growth.
[18:01] And you can see here this spike is includes a thousand people per year for the Ellsworth expansion.
[18:09] I believe that's going to be done around 2030 when they have all those people accounted for and then you can see it kind of tapers back off.
[18:22] And then we're going to move on to staffing projections here and stop me at any time if you have questions.
[18:28] The staffing projections here in 2022 the staff head count that BKB had was 914.
[18:38] I could not find the data on that.
[18:40] Meaning I don't know how many county employees that was specifically how many courts and employees
[18:46] and RCPD was also included in there, and I could not find it breakdown for that, but they
[18:54] showed by 20-40, we would have a 47% growth in staffing, which is 1,340 employees, sort
[19:04] of the revised projections that I'm looking at here. Again, this is all data backed. I can
[19:12] everything with you, I did not include all of my sources and all the other stuff at the back
[19:17] end of this. But I certainly can. We're showing more about between 950 and 1100 for the revised
[19:25] projection for 2040 staffing needs. And again, if you look up here, this is important. This is for
[19:30] county, courts, and our CPD all included.
[19:35] So. So, Chair, this is a question. So Mr. Mr. Davis,
[19:40] So per thousand, it's 7.2 ft's per thousand now.
[19:46] County employees, and we have 841 county employees.
[19:52] Okay, so it's 7.2 per thousand.
[19:54] And so I looked up Minihaha and it's got a population of 212.
[20:00] 601, and their FTEs are 635, and that's pretty much 3 FTEs per 1000s. So let's just say there's a
[20:11] anomaly in Pennington County. Let's add 100. Extra FTEs that we might not accounted for for different
[20:19] areas that we do different. That's still 3.5. Then I looked up what's typical in the counties, in general.
[20:28] it's usually 4 to 5 per thousand. How do we get there? What do we need to do different?
[20:35] I would say we need to do something different. If it's 7.2 FTs per thousand in Penitent
[20:40] and then we have other counties that are typical at 4 to 5.
[20:44] And we have a population that's double ours and then I add anomaly that we might have of 100.
[20:49] It's only 3.5. So there needs to be a change in Penitent County and how we do business with the FTEs
[20:57] and where we're moving forward.
[21:00] Based on the growth, like I said, and then you add to that 7.2,
[21:04] that's a lot of FTEs in Pittington County.
[21:06] And then I keep saying, and have said,
[21:08] there's going to be technology driven,
[21:10] and it's going to move forward in a way
[21:12] that we don't need as much building space,
[21:15] hopefully, in as many FTEs to run those different areas.
[21:20] So, based on BKV, try to say it
[21:22] in the first time when we talked about this
[21:24] right and I'm glad you recalculated because it wasn't making sense to me then and now that
[21:31] I figured it out based on real numbers it's quite an anomaly and Penny to County that we have
[21:38] 7.2 FTEs per thousand. So thank you Mr. Davis.
[21:45] So again the titles are important here
[21:48] the last slide you can see it's County's courts and RCPD staffing projections 2040 this is
[21:54] county and courts only, so just excluding our CPD, you can see the BK projection in 2040
[22:01] would have been about 123 total employees and again we have 841 now so keep that in mind.
[22:09] If you base it off of population scaling, so even if we were to grow to 145,000 people,
[22:15] we may need this many employees to put it into context.
[22:19] If you add five FTEs a year, this is the number you get to.
[22:23] If you add eight FTEs a year, that's the number you get to.
[22:27] And what I did here is I threw 50 correctional officers sort of on the back end
[22:32] and added it onto this number.
[22:35] That's again pending jail project in those future needs and how that project turns out.
[22:41] Oh, Jeremy.
[22:42] It comes back on.
[22:43] So basically, if we do the entire jail tower with 50 FTEs,
[22:48] 11 and they had a sat, not even with, did they have the jail tower and there were 1,000
[22:54] dollars.
[22:55] They did have some projections for a future jail, they did, but I don't know what their
[22:59] calculations were specifically on CEOs on correctional officers.
[23:04] That's quite a difference.
[23:06] Thank you.
[23:07] And then, so titles are important here.
[23:11] 2040 staffing projections with RCPD.
[23:14] So this is the data, this is the number I showed you on the main slide.
[23:19] So this was their projection with RCPD, RCPD, courts, and county.
[23:25] You can see it goes up to 1,340, even if you base it off a population scaling, I can't
[23:32] fathom that type of staffing increase.
[23:35] It's almost a 50% increase over 15 years from now.
[23:39] Again, if you hire five FTEs, hire eight or another 50 CEOs, we can get to that point.
[23:47] Or Chair, I keep asking a question, sorry.
[23:51] So, how many does the PD have now?
[23:55] Currently, well, in our downtown campus, roughly 90, 90 employees.
[24:00] So, they're projecting on the next page, so 9v47, more by 24, please officers.
[24:09] No, so this is actually, this graph shows 20, 40 to 20, 25 staffing projections.
[24:17] This is just an increase of staffing alone, so I'm not basically all these numbers start
[24:23] from our current staffing levels.
[24:26] So from this point forward our CPD would be roughly 137. They would need 137 more FTEs by 2040 plus the 90 plus what they already have downtown correct.
[24:38] And again, this, you know, I'm, the majority of our CPD's growth is going to be patrol.
[24:46] So it's not, they don't need confined office spaces, but again with patrol ads, admin, ads, everything else.
[24:54] it's it's difficult to project exactly I mean again I'm not I don't work for the city
[25:00] I would love to have someone from their health conceptualized some of this growth and understand it better.
[25:08] But as you can see, this is sort of a big piece of what I'm going to be talking about, because in no facet,
[25:18] can we continue to, I guess, utilize our downtown property space for our CPD growth over time.
[25:26] I think that relationship in the sheriff's office needs to maintain itself in ways that I don't know how those operations work.
[25:36] But over time we're really going to have to go to the table and have those hard discussions with our CPD about what they actually see happening with their growth long term.
[25:46] So by 2040, the courts will add roughly 25 people from now.
[25:51] Sheriff, I just threw a number in here again.
[25:54] This, I mean, he has some staffing needs that are not major,
[25:58] but if we build a new jail, this number can fluctuate dramatically.
[26:04] States attorneys, roughly 33 employees by 2040, 33 additional employees.
[26:10] ESS or 911, 26, and Treasurer, 14, and this number I strictly pulled from BKV I did not have time to meet with a net on this.
[26:22] So Davis, where did you come up with 33 for states attorney when they have 63.5 right now?
[26:29] I had a conversation with Laura and we came to the conclusion that roughly in attorney per year,
[26:38] Plus a legal secretary for every other attorney plus some other staffing projections. She had over the next four years
[26:45] So she may able to speak to that a little bit more. We didn't dive super deep into her staffing needs
[26:50] I took what BKV had and then I had a brief conversation with her
[26:53] But mainly that growth as attorneys and legal secretaries just
[26:58] This is growth right. This is not this is additional FTE's only over the next 16 3.5
[27:04] I think it's going to add 33 more in the next 15 years.
[27:09] Yeah.
[27:10] I'd like to know what Minihahe didn't look it up.
[27:12] What Minihahe has for, I know it's different in one sense.
[27:15] Like you said, you got to add anomalies.
[27:18] But that's a lot of attorneys.
[27:22] Please share if I understand it could be this, could be that.
[27:26] But same thing.
[27:28] I don't know.
[27:29] I think, right now, we have a lot of FTEs and some of the departments are ready.
[27:32] So that we're overstaffed and some of them that's my opinion.
[27:37] Mr. Chair.
[27:38] Yes, Commissioner.
[27:39] So in these numbers that you're showing with what about the other departments, increased
[27:45] staffing needs?
[27:46] These were the increasing the most out of all of the departments.
[27:54] So I didn't break it down to the other ones are fairly minimal over a 15 year stretch.
[28:01] All right.
[28:02] So can you include me?
[28:03] I can certainly.
[28:04] get you guys that information though.
[28:06] Oh, you included that on five FTs year, nine FTs yet?
[28:11] Yeah, and these projections, everything is calculated,
[28:14] every department within the county.
[28:17] And the reason these are highlighted differently is
[28:19] obviously because these are bigger ones.
[28:22] They're well, and they're not, you know,
[28:23] obviously the courts are state employees,
[28:26] and these are city employees.
[28:27] These are strictly county employees.
[28:30] And, you know, this number, like I said, the sheriff will need, there will be FTs that he will need for administrative purposes or other reasons, but a lot of these would be correctional officers, so it's you're not looking at a lot of square footage here outside of the jail itself, but not necessarily for office needs and things like that.
[28:50] So,
[28:54] so this is the square footage that BKV allocated per employee, and they're 2022 study.
[29:05] I am still unsure how this number ever came to fruition for 468 square feet.
[29:13] This is the blanket average that 468 on that they put on every single employee on our
[29:20] In our facilities, a correctional facility's average is 450 square feet per employee.
[29:28] That's national average.
[29:28] That is for correctional officers because they're usually serving a cell block that is fairly
[29:35] expansive and there's only a one or two correctional officers per cell block, things like that.
[29:41] So I've just tried to put something in context here, but right here you have the GSA National
[29:45] average, which is 190 square foot, and this is for this is for public facing offices.
[29:50] This is usually what is allocated per employee.
[29:55] I think our target average can be between 2 to 300 square feet per employee.
[30:00] And these calculations are offices, common corridors, public waiting spaces, conference rooms, restrooms, it takes everything into consideration.
[30:09] So again, this number may have been, sorry, this number may have been accurate for some correctional facilities items, but when they have it on a slide,
[30:21] But I did not include it in here, but it shows that they allocated 468 square feet per
[30:28] employee as a blanket average, which obviously drives our, what was, what was showing our
[30:35] square footage needs, it was very, very high at the time.
[30:39] Mr. Chair.
[30:41] Mr. Chairman.
[30:42] Mr. Chairman.
[30:42] Mr. Chairman.
[30:43] Mr. Chairman.
[30:44] feed of office space, and the typical employee that 190 square feet that would include, I'm
[30:55] looking at a cubicle, the typical cubicle size is that 10 by 10, roughly, so 100, 100 square
[31:04] feet.
[31:08] Okay, I'm just trying to, and then I can break it down for you.
[31:11] And if you had a thousand square feet and you're not usable area for employee, what percent of that total thousand square feet would be always elevators, festivals, break rooms and so forth.
[31:24] It just breaks down in a sort of it's portioned per department. So if you have a department that has, let's take the treasurer's office into it, you know, just because it's sort of easy to talk about, they have a public waiting area.
[31:41] So that would be taken into consideration in their space.
[31:44] How many FTs do they have?
[31:46] How many offices do they have?
[31:48] How many conference rooms do they have?
[31:49] And then some shared restrooms and corridors.
[31:51] And basically, so you would take their office space,
[31:55] which may be a hundred square feet,
[31:56] and then you take all the other square footage
[31:57] and you divide it by the amount of employees that they have.
[32:01] And again, in that case, you may end up over a hundred and ninety square feet.
[32:06] But, it's rare that you get to a point ever where you need 468 square feet for that.
[32:15] I didn't get to break this down even further based on every single department, but I certainly can.
[32:20] It's a lot of work because every single one of them are different.
[32:22] But I can tell you right now that almost every single one of them will fall within the 190 to 300 square feet.
[32:28] Yeah, I guess my question was before we got into this.
[32:34] Any deeper was that 200 the square foot target that that included all the common areas
[32:39] rest him always.
[32:41] It does.
[32:41] Yes.
[32:42] It does.
[32:42] Thank you.
[32:44] Mr. Davis.
[32:45] Yeah.
[32:46] When you use these numbers like each one of your employees that don't have basically their own
[32:51] middle of the time, concert be sheriff.
[32:54] Yep.
[32:55] So like you have space to use typically.
[32:58] And so like a lot of my main, it's guys don't have offices.
[33:01] they just have like a break room, which then that space gets divided amongst them.
[33:07] Now then, you know, with B&G, you're also going to have storage needs, you're going to have
[33:12] fleets, equipment storage and stuff like that. So that could expand what you actually calculate
[33:17] per employee for those needs. But again, it varies drastically. It's just easier to use the total employees.
[33:23] That's where it comes with. And that's why the 2 to 300 is a fairly, fairly decent average,
[33:30] and it's pretty conservative as well.
[33:37] So phase one, these are departments that are not moving the concourse.
[33:43] I have already spoken with pretty much everyone on here except for the courts.
[33:51] I've spoken with Liz a little bit about some items, but we have some more things we need to get into there
[33:57] And that's a much bigger monster.
[34:00] The court system is.
[34:02] And the one, item or the one department I did not have on here is human services, who is located
[34:07] over at Care Campus, and I have not spoken with them yet.
[34:10] Phase two, these are all departments that are moving to ConCourse, and you can see, so
[34:16] I think everyone's been out to ConCourse and seeing the space out there.
[34:21] And I can tell you confidently that that building will hold up for decades for those
[34:27] departments with growth aligned inside of it, but this phase 2 will come later.
[34:38] So the end goal of this assessment is really just to continue to emphasize long-term
[34:42] campus planning, and obviously maximize the use of existing facilities, talk more about
[34:48] that here in a bit,
[34:52] and it goes along with the second one optimizes the use of the vacated
[34:55] administrative spaces following the Concourse relocation, a line building.
[35:00] I'm going to use it with department size and foot traffic. And then this one's a huge one here.
[35:06] I acknowledge our CPD significant projected growth. I've talked about that a little bit, but we're really going to have to come to the table and figure out exactly what we're going to do for the long-term planning with our CPD, and how that looks because I'm not trying to squeeze a department out of PSB.
[35:24] That's not what I'm trying to do, or squeeze our CPD out of there.
[35:27] But I can tell you confidently, if they continue to,
[35:31] maybe by precincts in the south and the north and the east and the west,
[35:36] and they can expand that way rather than downtown,
[35:38] because really we don't have anywhere to expand downtown.
[35:41] If they continue to do that, it allows the sheriff's office
[35:45] to continue to grow within our own county building at the public safety building.
[35:51] Concourse, again, this is phase two, but you'll see a department specific growth plan aligned with all of that available square footage.
[36:00] This is obviously a point of future overcrowding, and then plan for future expansion out there as well.
[36:08] So what does this do? It builds on a BKB foundation, doesn't replace it.
[36:12] It aligns with updated data.
[36:14] focuses on practical reuse of existing space.
[36:18] It supports the Commission's directive to reduce costs,
[36:21] creates department-level recommendations,
[36:25] and what does it need to succeed?
[36:28] Just clear objectives, current data,
[36:30] continuing to be a fluid document, leadership support,
[36:33] obviously, a shared focus on what's best for the county's future,
[36:37] and then I will be transparent at every stage during this process.
[36:42] Any more questions on that before we get to the
[36:45] Mr. Chair?
[36:46] Mr. Chair.
[36:47] The day of us over at the Public Defenders Building,
[36:49] which is 14 St. Joe, right now how many per square foot estimate per employee based on the 36,000 square feet that that building is, I believe it's 36,000 square feet.
[37:01] Just so that we get an idea what we currently have over their per employee.
[37:07] And that would include.
[37:08] But I bet that would fall between 350 and 400 square feet per employee, would be my guess.
[37:15] Okay. Yeah. But I don't have that off. Right now, but that would be my guess based off of public
[37:22] defenders, current staffing levels and ours. It's probably closer to the 400 because we
[37:28] have less than 100 employees total and that building is 40,000 square feet, 39,000 square feet.
[37:34] So, well, okay, we can, everything I've seen is 36, but I'm good with 42.
[37:40] So, if we asked the public defender to come up here and say,
[37:43] what do you feel based on the increase in crime that you see in the rap city in
[37:48] Penning County, Western South Dakota, what do you feel your number of employees that you're going
[37:54] to need in 2015 years now, there again, we're just asking the source, the folks that deal with this
[38:01] day. And if they say, you know, I don't know what the answer is going to be, but then it could
[38:06] we take that projection 15 years out and then divided it into 40,000 in C where that comes
[38:13] out how many square feet per employee just so that we're all on the same page and we're
[38:19] including the department heads in this conversation. Sure. Yes, and they have been, I have
[38:24] had multiple meetings with Eric over the last few months and also that number that we're
[38:29] looking at for 2040, 2045 is roughly 50 to 55 FTEs for that department right now. I believe
[38:35] they're at 36 and you'll see in the admin building concept that I'll show here in a bit
[38:42] that that we can accommodate that growth within this building but I can certainly put a number
[38:48] to the first interstate bank building. I can certainly say that if the department heads are happy
[38:53] with these projections, they feel comfortable with it. So do I. Okay. Got it. And if they
[38:58] can certainly come up at any point in talk if they want to.
[39:02] I'm going to briefly go through this.
[39:05] This is just a summary.
[39:07] I made sure to add every single building, but the majority of buildings that house, the majority
[39:13] of our departments, so obviously the bank or the public defender's operations building, currently
[39:19] houses public defenders and buildings and grounds, and then you'll see the conceptual
[39:23] consolidation plan for that.
[39:25] County admin building, the building we're standing in now, conceptual plan for that, you will see here that that includes the public defenders and buildings and grounds moving back into this building.
[39:40] Highlights of that plan that you will see is the fire admin is moving into the former H or soon to be former HR area.
[39:47] States attorneys is expanding public defenders is moving back into their space on third
[39:53] floor, but also expanding down the level two.
[39:56] We have records, civil, and warrants from public cities.
[40:00] Safety building, potentially moving into the public face encounters up on 2nd floor, and I'll show you guys that.
[40:07] And then the NG moves into the IT space. The estimated remodel costs that we're looking at right now is between 1 and 2.5 million.
[40:15] That can really drastically change depending on how much we really want to dive into it.
[40:19] I'm trying to keep those costs as low as possible by just doing the minimal amount of work as possible because a lot of the space we have now is pretty much a user.
[40:29] friendly and ready to move into, but there is a little bit of work that has to happen.
[40:35] The public safety building, you will also see that plan right now, it houses the Sheriff's
[40:41] Office and RCPD.
[40:46] Some of the key considerations are obviously record civil and warrants moving over to cab.
[40:50] Like I mentioned, I am not recommending the 24-7 program, be relocated to downtown.
[40:56] We can certainly have a longer conversation about that.
[41:00] same with DCI. I don't know how DCI operates within the sheriff's office. So that would be something the sheriff would have to speak on if that could be moved to a doubt to the downtown space.
[41:13] And then PSB could be used as a swing space to relocate the jail admin people over.
[41:21] If the jail project goes through and we're remodeling that space we can use admin as, sorry, the PSB building a swing space.
[41:29] Another part of this presentation is going to show some of the buildings and grounds site.
[41:34] We call it the Harley building, the wood shop and metal shop.
[41:38] We have had a lot of interest in those lots from developers.
[41:43] I think for a long time, B&G has put other departments first before themselves in a lot
[41:50] of aspects and I think it's really time we start to look at what a long term planning solution
[41:56] for B&G could look like to potentially consolidate those shops and potentially build a new
[42:03] building. And obviously it's a big request or a big thing to think about. But again, it's
[42:13] time we look into that. And I also believe that this was talked about as part of the bonding
[42:17] efforts that were made back in 2022 or 2023 when they bonded for the money that we currently
[42:23] have now was part of it was for potential B&G building.
[42:27] Jail and Jail annex.
[42:30] This is pretty self-explanatory.
[42:32] We have some major infrastructure in the 1989 Jail and some more capacity issues.
[42:37] So that project is ongoing.
[42:40] Concourse, it's going to be the new administration building.
[42:42] Again, that will support long-term growth for those departments for decades.
[42:48] evidence building. It is a county own facility. Utilized by the Sheriff's Office, RCPD and
[42:53] Highway Patrol, but it is 100% staff by RCPD, and I believe there are about 15 employees
[42:59] over there. How many? 15 at the evidence building. Court House, you know, like it states
[43:08] their growth within the court system is expected to continue at a manageable pace, so we just
[43:13] to make sure we can re-work some existing layouts, build out unfinished underused utilized areas
[43:20] especially down in the basement and then maintain flexibility for future courtrooms
[43:24] and support space.
[43:26] No immediate major expansion is needed, but we obviously are going to have to keep adjusting
[43:31] to keep pace with the courts.
[43:34] pivot point. That is the building that is behind the care campus. That is a county
[43:42] own facility that's operated by West River Mental Health. Then you have the care
[43:47] campus which holds several service office for the departments including crisis
[43:52] care, center, detox and then I mistakenly put human services in there very made me
[43:57] hear about that. So apologies there but their human services is not part of the
[44:02] know, no changes are currently planned right now for that space and then the original jail,
[44:08] which is the former B&G building, this is the building that's kind of in the courthouse,
[44:12] right as you pull into the courthouse parking lot off of Kansas City Street. And this right now serves
[44:18] as patrol and training spaces for sheriff's office and our CPD.
[44:24] I don't really need to get into
[44:25] this document unless you guys need me to. I provided this a while back. This is it shows what
[44:32] What our building name is, the square footage, do we own it or not, is it least, do we lease
[44:37] it out or are we leasing it and then the primary occupants in there?
[44:41] You can kind of see the total square footage.
[44:43] This is everything that's listed on this list.
[44:45] It's not everything that we have, but it's the majority and then it shows what we, the amount
[44:52] we currently lease.
[44:53] This is what we paid per year for lease and this is leased from the county that we currently
[44:58] make off the company.
[45:00] I'm saying that is we have the old accounting administration, we have 12 departments in the correct. Sorry, say that again.
[45:07] We have 12 departments in the current administration building yesterday. There's 105 square feet, 871.
[45:16] And then we have about 25,000 comms face or mechanical room.
[45:23] How does this building get roughly 20 to 25,000 of this?
[45:30] So using 80,000 square feet for basically employees, and you have 12 departments.
[45:37] Correct.
[45:39] Then across the street, you have 40,000 square feet.
[45:44] How much common area do you have?
[45:46] are mechanical. 5,000, 10,000.
[45:49] The majority of the mechanicals on the roof, so it's minimal other than public corridors.
[45:54] So I'd say probably 5 to 8,000.
[45:56] Okay, so you have two departments on 40 basically, 40,000 square feet across the bank.
[46:04] Then let's go to concourse.
[46:06] We have 76,000 square feet, how much of a common area do you have?
[46:11] Basically, halls and...
[46:14] It's actually, I would say about 50,000 of that, 55,000 of that is occupied by staff.
[46:24] So I'd say roughly 20,000 is common space.
[46:27] Okay, so then you have eight departments in 50,000,000 space.
[46:32] So you have anybody getting this?
[46:34] So if you have eight departments in about 55,000,
[46:38] thousand square feet, but across the street you have two departments in 40,000 square feet
[46:43] with not a common. I'll keep saying, when this all came about with BKV, that's exactly
[46:49] what I was saying. It's overdone. You're using a space that wasn't needed and you still
[46:56] have square footage in this building, obviously, and you had square footage left where
[47:00] you could have took and we could have took and used maybe the kitchens and all that.
[47:05] there wasn't a half due to have kitchens and everything over there.
[47:09] Here's the problem as well.
[47:10] You took TSP's plan and you had a construction manager change in.
[47:19] So they had a perfectly good plan for what was going to happen at over at the concourse
[47:23] and we had some departments that went in there and changed it.
[47:27] Some made rooms so they could get out the back door through the halls and different areas.
[47:31] That's just crazy to me.
[47:33] What happened?
[47:35] transparent communication we never had. So now we have a design with
[47:41] hallways that look like mazes because some of the departments decided they
[47:46] needed to redo their areas with a construction manager instead of architects.
[47:54] We had some very untransparent stuff happening on these buildings and I think
[48:00] it's pretty sad because it shows by the square footage across the street and it
[48:04] by the design at TSP. It also shows by the numbers. But we never could get the numbers.
[48:13] So unfortunately,
[48:18] people that were doing this and wouldn't listen to me and Travis, and then the cost.
[48:25] This sheet you gave us, Mr. Davis, it shows we didn't have enough money to buy a bank
[48:32] because we had millions of dollars worth of roofs and other stuff that we had to have in a plan.
[48:37] And I kept saying in the buildings and grounds when I was in there, more buildings is not better
[48:43] guys.
[48:44] It's a fish and an effect of what we have now.
[48:46] And it shows by the plans and what happened, and by the design of what happened to a building
[48:52] that, unfortunately, and I'll say again, we didn't have the money to build that after the
[48:56] fact that we found out we didn't have $9 million because the city didn't contribute it,
[49:01] like they were going to in a contract that we never signed.
[49:03] So, all that transparency for all these buildings and all this stuff that I agreed also on concourse,
[49:10] thinking we had a $9 million contract, has now come to pass to do this in order to make it work,
[49:17] and also have someone with knowledge that what does the needs of Pinnon County need for the future, not what they wanted.
[49:27] You know, you knew by the 450 square feet per individual. We knew that back at BKVs.
[49:37] That was before they changed anything. So what's changed? It hasn't.
[49:41] What happened is you had the votes.
[49:45] You had the people going in there that empowered themselves to do stuff that shouldn't have been done.
[49:52] And now the public is paying the cost.
[50:00] So you knew nothing about this at the time, you're just trying to work out how you make it work in a way that it's deans, not once, of departments.
[50:10] Because I don't see Penny's encounter growing in big FTEs. I see technology and I set it back then in technology.
[50:18] Plus, what we all forgot about is you have to pay insurance, you have to pay for those extra
[50:24] fTs, you have to pay for all that stuff that we found out from 16 million in five years
[50:31] of fTs with benefits was 21 million, not that 3.6 that was said to us.
[50:37] It was 21 million in five years that we increased just on fTs and benefits for them.
[50:45] Then you bought buildings that didn't have space needs that actually or needs they were once
[50:52] So all that came to past where we are today
[50:55] That we have to do some cuts in order to make that happen. We said that Travis and I said that you guys are making us so it's unsustainable for the future
[51:04] And it's showing through these numbers. It's showing through the
[51:09] Faxial numbers on FTEs and what we actually spent by now
[51:14] So, Davis, thank you for bringing this forward.
[51:17] I also, like I said, the square footage didn't make sense to me back then.
[51:21] Now, it really shows how much we overdid.
[51:25] Thank you.
[51:26] Thank you, Chair.
[51:26] Commissioner.
[51:27] I'd like to get my teammates and now that we've heard this lecture.
[51:32] If I had the opportunity to divide that property today for five million, I'd do it in
[51:37] the heartbeat.
[51:38] And here's three reasons why.
[51:40] Number one is when we bought that property, we also bought a 28,000 square
[51:44] of a lot that was adjacent to the vacant to 28,000 square foot lot, the lamplutter, a lot.
[51:53] And the effort of trying to have some vacant land for future expansion for the court systems
[51:58] that was a good move.
[52:00] It was a $5 million purchase, $1.8 million in land that left a residual for $3 million, $200,000
[52:08] for a class A institutional quality building that comes to 82 dollars as square foot.
[52:16] Davis, if you had to replace that building today, we both know you could not do the building
[52:20] by itself for less than 400.
[52:23] Probably close to the 450 or 500 and you have to agree with that.
[52:27] And so if we sell the building, we sell the building, but the bottom line, it was a good
[52:32] investment for the money and for the location because in my heart it was the right thing
[52:36] do because the location kept the campus together and then put the public defender three miles
[52:43] to my courthouse. So, if I have to do it again, I do it again. If we have to sell some of the
[52:47] property, that's fine. But I had, I had my own rationale. I do it again in the hard, but I just
[52:52] want to make that clear. Chair.
[52:56] Commissioner Headcut. I can respect that, Ron. But I appreciate that,
[53:01] you know, square footage and you know buildings, but you have to know money. So you have to have
[53:06] the money even it looks like a good deal I would like to go by another motel because it's
[53:11] a great deal and a better space and it's a great but if I don't have enough money and
[53:16] it shows from these sheets and we kept saying we don't have enough money for that building.
[53:23] Even if it's a great deal I like great deals but if I can't afford them because I have
[53:29] other stuff because we had wage studies we had other things that we needed to do and
[53:34] had concourse to spend the money on.
[53:37] So, I respect that you liked that building
[53:40] and you thought the square footage was great,
[53:42] but I also have to understand that the taxpayers
[53:46] are saying quit spending our money,
[53:49] we want the budgets to either level out or lower,
[53:52] so we don't have property taxes
[53:54] at least in Pennyton County.
[53:56] So, we were trying to do that,
[53:58] and some of us weren't,
[53:59] we decided that we'd get the most being for a buck.
[54:02] Like I said, I respect that
[54:03] one sense, but I also am a what if, and it came to the what if because it shows right here
[54:09] on these sheets, how many millions that we need, and we could have used the 4.5 million
[54:14] to correct stuff that we already had in B&G, which was said over and over again, you gotta take
[54:20] care of the building you have before you buy more. That's just common sense, 101 business when
[54:27] And you're doing anything, let alone government.
[54:33] So I appreciate that you got good per square foot.
[54:37] I have appreciate that you want that building because you thought they needed more space.
[54:42] But the bottom line it was a want not a need because of the needs that were already needed
[54:47] before without money instead of the wants that we should have had for a big, a great deal.
[54:52] I think it was your haircut.
[55:00] And you break out lease property, we're at 158,000 in change, and we're getting in return on our lease property, 44.
[55:12] So, in some of these buildings, and I would imagine you have it, and I'm just going to ask for it, but can you break out the buildings where we have shared space and what the square footage is with all the players?
[55:25] Yes.
[55:26] So, and then I'm going to go back to the PSB and so it might be a question for the sheriff,
[55:31] but so the police department is sharing the public safety building.
[55:35] Are they paying by a square footage or how is that done?
[55:39] They, yes, yes, there's it's percentage base based off of the amount of square footages
[55:44] that they take up in the building.
[55:46] They pay 61% operating costs and utility costs at that building.
[55:54] Okay.
[55:54] So they're paying operating costs and utilities and utilities.
[55:59] So a utility and when I say operating, I mean like maintenance and custodial things and everything
[56:05] associated with that building, 61% roughly.
[56:09] Of the operating costs, but they're not paying for space.
[56:13] They're not leasing, no, they're not leasing space.
[56:17] So this is, I would like that broken out as well, you know, the return that we're getting, you
[56:24] space and it's going to go back to a question on the fact that on the space that we're
[56:30] leasing and it's a talking point to have with the department heads and you know the sheriff is
[56:36] here and you could probably answer the question but just put it in your mind. So I'm assuming
[56:42] up at the DCI building and we're paying 20,000 a year and a lease because we have law enforcement
[56:48] up there. And my comment about that is the county is providing so much space to everybody,
[56:55] but it doesn't appear that we're getting a return.
[57:00] We're giving up pre-space, and yes,
[57:03] some of the operational costs, but we're getting billed. And on the law enforcement side,
[57:08] that 20,000 for DCI, I'm just going to give an example. So if the state is charging us 20 grand
[57:14] you know, footprint up at the DCI building, we're giving the state under the state for each program,
[57:20] the entire Walter Taylor building, had no cost. And so there's other things that we're doing,
[57:27] that we're giving back to the state, but we're not building reciprocally. And so the Walter Taylor
[57:32] building is one, it's not a county program, it's the state program run under the extension service.
[57:38] And we provide that building, and we're I believe any way we're doing all the maintenance enough
[57:42] Keep on that at our cost, no shared cost, correct?
[57:48] Miner shared costs depends on the project.
[57:52] But for H or the state, I believe,
[57:56] does have a little bit of room in their budget
[57:58] for minor maintenance costs, but yeah,
[58:00] the majority of it is by buildings and buildings.
[58:02] Okay, because in our agreement that we have,
[58:04] in our agreement with them, it's just a personal cost,
[58:07] travel, contractual, that type of thing,
[58:09] I don't see anything in there about.
[58:11] They've just built a minor, all right.
[58:13] I bought like a budget line item for maintenance, but yeah.
[58:17] And then go back to the evidence building.
[58:20] So the evidence building, the PD is not paying for that,
[58:24] because they're staffing it.
[58:25] So in return, we're getting them to process or evidence.
[58:29] Correct.
[58:30] They do pay operational costs from that building as well, though.
[58:34] Yep.
[58:34] And then I'll break that down.
[58:35] Break that out.
[58:37] And then the state, then, if I were to troll,
[58:40] is utilizing that evidence building or they paying anything
[58:43] for operational costs.
[58:47] All right.
[58:48] So this is, I could go down the list.
[58:50] But this is what I want to get to to make sure
[58:53] that the county is getting a reciprocal in kind,
[58:57] kind of respect financially from these other entities
[59:00] that we're supporting.
[59:01] Because we're providing a lot of space.
[59:03] It goes back to the courthouse as well.
[59:06] And in all of these, if you could break out
[59:08] what the shared square footage is.
[59:11] And then go back and show that we're providing
[59:13] this amount of space to all of these other entities, but in return some of these same entities
[59:18] are billing us for shared space. And you know, I would just like to make sure that
[59:25] Pennington County is getting a fair deal on some of the space that we're providing.
[59:30] Got it.
[59:31] All right, Mr. Chair.
[59:33] Good.
[59:34] Yeah.
[59:34] I'm going to close with saying that three or four years ago, five commissioners agreed
[59:39] to hire BKV for space needs.
[59:42] We listen to the presentation, their presentation clearly told us at the time that we needed
[59:47] a space.
[59:48] So in good faith, that's the direction that I went.
[59:52] It wasn't, didn't malice, it wasn't trying to...
[1:00:00] For that report. Well, anyhow, I appreciate diving deeper into the weeds, so we can really narrow this
[1:00:08] down and see what are actual space needs. I appreciate all the work that you've put in this. I don't think
[1:00:13] that's why you came to petting the county. This sit there and do this type of stuff. You came here to
[1:00:17] fix buildings and maintain our grounds. But anyhow, it's a good discussion. I appreciate it. And at the end
[1:00:24] of this, I might change my tune. And we don't need that building, but if we saw the building, I hope we
[1:00:28] we make a profit that we can offset some of our other projects.
[1:00:33] Yeah. Just a couple of quick points before I move on.
[1:00:35] I think the biggest thing isn't finding the data that was wrong with BKV.
[1:00:41] It's more or less we had an opportunity to re-valuate our needs after we purchased
[1:00:46] Concourse and we never did.
[1:00:48] And I think that was the biggest miss.
[1:00:51] We continued to go to base it off of the trajectory that BKV had even
[1:00:58] after we purchased con course and that's where I think some of these shortcomings came from
[1:01:02] to say well we can re-utilize this building in more ways than what we were showing and
[1:01:10] also RCPD's growth was accounted for in BKV's study. How much admin space they were
[1:01:17] giving up to them I do not know I have to go through all that meaning office like square footage
[1:01:21] space but I can tell you it's substantial and I think those were the things that could
[1:01:27] been re-valuated at some point and I hate to be the one to come to the table and say,
[1:01:32] you know, we can accommodate that growth, but unless I hear otherwise, we can accommodate
[1:01:37] that growth.
[1:01:43] I just wanted to, you had it out, this building is a grounds capital improvements, and I appreciate
[1:01:50] this in all my years of government or government's public service, whatever, and I think
[1:01:57] adds up to roughly around 15 years and to finally realize a dream where we actually rely on the
[1:02:05] people that we hire to come forth with the refugees and bring forward a first-class study.
[1:02:16] I mean, we are a crowd so I always have this rationale of thinking that some other people,
[1:02:24] there are some other persons smarter than the people we actually have hired, which is part of
[1:02:28] problems that run into, probably ran into BKV,
[1:02:32] ran into the landfill, the questions always came up.
[1:02:36] You got front line people doing the jobs,
[1:02:38] and they can answer a lot of these questions
[1:02:39] within short order, which you've
[1:02:41] seemed to have done, appreciate all that hard work.
[1:02:44] One question I had is on old Ziggy Shop.
[1:02:49] That's $120,000 a year that we pay for lease.
[1:02:52] Now, when we look at, and we've had this conversation
[1:02:55] about a new, but a new building is a ground shop. Would that replace this then?
[1:03:00] No, no. That is specific to sheriff's office fleet. That's where they do the repairs on their patrol vehicles.
[1:03:11] And it is also a believe storage for sheriff's office and also storage for emergency management as well.
[1:03:17] There's quite a few things in that bill.
[1:03:19] And then you had it out of buildings that ground capital improvement, you know, looking at
[1:03:23] concourse, and we've done a lot of improvements to that, do you know what that number
[1:03:29] is right now?
[1:03:30] The improvements after we purchased it, after we purchased concourse, the total package with
[1:03:36] FFNN everything is going to be between 9 and 10 million that we put into that building.
[1:03:40] Okay, and now, within an X2 to 3 years, we're going to have to add a new roof, and we're
[1:03:49] side and west side within the next two years for another two million bucks.
[1:03:53] It's correct.
[1:03:54] And so the only reason we didn't do that is to keep costs down.
[1:03:58] Right, right, right.
[1:03:59] I get that weak.
[1:03:59] But that it would be.
[1:04:00] And hopefully if we rearrange some of the stuff we can look at it, one thing that I don't
[1:04:05] want to see is a bad roof on a building because obviously that's detrimental to any of the
[1:04:09] electronics, any of the equipment that we put inside of it, whatever the personnel that are
[1:04:14] in there.
[1:04:15] So looking at all this and looking at our space needs and wherever we're going to
[1:04:19] be and I also agree that we have to address if we're not far above the average employee
[1:04:25] per population we need to really have an in-depth conversation about this. I'm not
[1:04:31] interested in going outside the people that we have hired to do this what at some point
[1:04:37] we need to take a real deep look. We're almost double for FTE per thousand employees that
[1:04:43] we have in this county according to these numbers. I mean I do a lot of comparisons with
[1:04:49] And I'm not sure, you know, if I'm comparing apples to apples or apples.
[1:05:00] Looking at, you know, maybe like Mr. Roskin, it would reevaluate in the day. Whatever happened yesterday,
[1:05:05] I have no control over. I drove to work today. There was a roadblock. I had to drive around the roadblock.
[1:05:10] I didn't anticipate that. But that's what's going to happen. So I think we have the commission that can
[1:05:17] can take these these things on. I think that, you know, by the recent changes we've made in, in getting
[1:05:25] numbers and information and relying on the people that are doing the jobs to do their jobs and then actually holding them accountable to do their jobs such as
[1:05:34] this I think this is in the scope of your your your job. I mean knowing I think that this hadn't been done in the past now
[1:05:41] I think we've got a
[1:05:43] dynamic
[1:05:44] You know, these are ground person in place that we can take advantage of and moving forward and looking at this in depth.
[1:05:52] So I'll appreciate all the hard work you put into this and I'll come in.
[1:05:55] Yeah, just to follow up on your comment.
[1:05:58] So getting back to the least space with all the properties that County has, I don't want to see is paying least on top of this square footage we have.
[1:06:07] So I know it's not popular to look for another location for the 24 or seven program.
[1:06:13] but I think as we look down the road,
[1:06:17] try to find an alternative location with the sheriff,
[1:06:20] and I know in conversations with the sheriff,
[1:06:22] it's been moved multiple times to different locations.
[1:06:29] But with all the square footage we have,
[1:06:31] and this goes back to kind of my point,
[1:06:35] that we're giving away a lot of square footage
[1:06:37] in my opinion, not getting a return on that investment,
[1:06:40] and on top of that, we're outside leasing space and so the scale is tipped and it's not in our favor.
[1:06:47] And the other one getting back to your point about the Ziggy Shop at 112,000 a year, I mean,
[1:06:54] it kind of briefly got talked about during a budget process,
[1:06:58] but it was looking at getting a building out of the highway shop
[1:07:02] that maybe could be shared by the sheriff and by the highway department
[1:07:06] And getting into there were some discussions about getting a location and we could do some
[1:07:11] fleet management and some shared costs throughout the organization.
[1:07:15] And so I know that that's on the sheriff's radar and we superintendents radar to get rid
[1:07:20] of this lease and it wouldn't take long to put up a building out at the highway department
[1:07:29] and save that cost over time.
[1:07:32] And better operational.
[1:07:33] So, yeah, and I, that is part of sort of the conceptual plan is we are including that.
[1:07:41] Potentially getting rid of, eventually getting rid of the Ziggy's building and moving it to the highway department.
[1:07:47] So, I'm, I'm having talk with Joe and the sheriff on that.
[1:07:50] All right.
[1:07:51] Commissioner Hacau.
[1:07:52] We've heard.
[1:07:54] What is, what are we thinking?
[1:07:57] And we need to do to make this plan or this feature plan work.
[1:08:04] I mean, we need motions for you to be able to do your job and move it forward in different
[1:08:10] areas, or I see you have some on here.
[1:08:13] But is that still what you're thinking is to-
[1:08:16] It is.
[1:08:17] And if I can continue, I'll touch that sort of at the last point.
[1:08:22] Continue, please.
[1:08:22] Okay, so this one is just a conceptual consolidation memo talking about the bank and the Harley
[1:08:30] building and wood shop spaces and I will show an aerial view of those here and a bit.
[1:08:36] So we purchased the bank in 2023 for, well, the building itself was 443,000 and then we
[1:08:46] purchased two adjacent lots, one was on first street and one was on Kansas City Street and
[1:08:51] those were purchased for $557,000 bringing the total to $5 million.
[1:08:56] So I broke it out here, you can see the purchase price, you can see the square footage,
[1:09:01] price per square foot, that it was purchased for a remodel investment was $965, and then you
[1:09:06] can see our total building investment.
[1:09:10] I'm not in the real estate market, but I'm confident to say I think we could come out
[1:09:15] OK on this, we'll have to see what the market looks like.
[1:09:19] So, I'm going to talk more about this consolidation stuff coming up here, but we have had
[1:09:25] Elevate Rapid City and South Dakota School of Mines reach out to me with heavy, heavy
[1:09:30] interest on the bank building.
[1:09:33] The Harley building and wood shop, metal shop, again, market interest in downtown potential.
[1:09:39] There's a lot of local business development happening down there and there's strong interest
[1:09:45] in those lots as well.
[1:09:48] This is just, I'm not going to go over this, but this is a letter from Tom Johnson and Ella.
[1:10:00] We're talking about how they're innovative district. They're looking to expand. And again, that's
[1:10:06] part of potentially the opportunity with the bank and even the hardly building wood shop lots.
[1:10:15] So again, I urge you guys to read these on your own time, so I don't take up too much time here.
[1:10:20] But this is what I'm going to go through now is the floor plans at the county administration building to show if
[1:10:27] or it's contingent on the bank building being sold or those departments moving over.
[1:10:32] So we'll just get into it right away.
[1:10:35] And again, before I start there is some remodel cost in here,
[1:10:39] but nothing that we can't handle.
[1:10:43] So this is the ground level.
[1:10:45] This is where we are at.
[1:10:46] Now we are actually in this room here.
[1:10:48] The multi-purpose room that I labeled it.
[1:10:50] This is the commission chambers.
[1:10:53] This is the office space just to my right.
[1:10:57] is currently just vacant there I shouldn't have said there's no current plan for this space I mean there is
[1:11:02] This room can be used for grand jury. It can be used lots of multipurpose right grand jury use. It can be
[1:11:09] Departmental training large department meetings things like that. We have all the AV set up in here
[1:11:14] So again, there's no remodel plans in here other than maybe adding a few doors
[1:11:21] Here you have
[1:11:23] 911 dispatch
[1:11:25] So, they are going to occupy some of this space here right now.
[1:11:30] They kind of are like right in here.
[1:11:33] So, we're giving them a little more admin space.
[1:11:35] We're expanding their dispatch room to give them growth.
[1:11:39] And also, when I spoke to Kevin about his dispatch centers,
[1:11:43] I believe his dispatch call center stations are almost reducing
[1:11:49] by half the size, so he can fit more dispatchers in this room,
[1:11:54] which accounts for some long term growth.
[1:11:57] Emergency management is up here.
[1:11:59] They're going to maintain their space up here.
[1:12:01] They have space to hire an additional employee as well
[1:12:05] as potentially build out one more office for a long, long term
[1:12:09] future employee.
[1:12:11] This is the EOC space.
[1:12:13] This is just going to maintain as the EOC space
[1:12:16] where consolidating some of the storage,
[1:12:18] moving it up here.
[1:12:20] And then this is, I hatched out these are the departments
[1:12:23] that are moving into this space is the hatch lines.
[1:12:26] So B&G would occupy down where IT is.
[1:12:30] And then IT would hold a small footprint here
[1:12:33] with a few offices in the server room.
[1:12:37] Fire admin would be where HR is right now.
[1:12:41] They need a space for their PPE equipment
[1:12:45] to be rinsed off after it's been exposed
[1:12:48] to smoke and other things.
[1:12:49] And there is already plumbing in this area here, so this reconfiguration is fairly simple.
[1:12:55] Building support spaces is water heaters, loading dock, com rooms, electrical rooms,
[1:13:01] mechanical rooms down here.
[1:13:03] So if this cannot be built out to offices,
[1:13:07] I'll just keep moving into you guys stop me.
[1:13:10] So what I'm going to do is I'm going to come back to second floor.
[1:13:13] I'm just going to, because it's a little easier if I work from the top now now.
[1:13:16] So we have states attorneys is currently up on 4th floor, they occupy this area, they also occupy
[1:13:24] this area and they have a few straggler offices over here in the public old public defender space.
[1:13:30] So the majority of this space is empty right now and so this is where the public defender
[1:13:35] is moved out of. The plan is right now to move them back into this space and over here where I
[1:13:46] expanded into or even part of a conceptual plan, we can add up to eight offices just in that mechanical space alone
[1:13:54] and it's ready for expansion. I mean, it's got poured concrete floors, all it needs is ceiling walls and carpet and you're ready to go.
[1:14:02] So this gives them almost 2,000 more square feet than what they had, currently up there, and then, if we go down a second floor, this one gets confusing here a little bit, so hang with me.
[1:14:14] This is some future growth space for public defenders, so this is where the treasure is is now when you come in the main doors
[1:14:21] You go down here. This is the treasures counter so that counter sinks back into this space. That up that would all be tore out the wall would be brought out here
[1:14:30] We would have public defenders here. There's elevator access and stairs so they can get from floor to floor very easily for their staff
[1:14:38] And then if we move over here. This is where planning and zoning is
[1:14:42] This is where equalization is
[1:14:44] States authorities would essentially if you see they're just stacked on top of each other for three floors and this gives them quite a bit of growth for the future here as well
[1:14:55] These blue spaces are what I'm calling vacant right now. This is where
[1:15:00] You can see this square footage is roughly 9,000. We're still working through bits and pieces of this.
[1:15:06] I'm working with my project manager to throw some files up and move some walls and add some offices and figure out how we can best utilize this space.
[1:15:16] So essentially, the parking lot out front that the public is used to using can continue to be used for a public corridor.
[1:15:23] I mean, a public parking space, and then we maintain this public corridor in here, public
[1:15:28] restrooms, so a lot less remodel work goes into this than what was currently conceptualized.
[1:15:36] We can't afford to do that.
[1:15:37] Well, we can't afford to do that.
[1:15:38] We can't afford to do that.
[1:15:39] We can't afford to do that.
[1:15:39] Sorry, Chair.
[1:15:40] Not a question.
[1:15:41] So, in B&G, the 4,231 is that with expansion of offices or anything, where would you
[1:15:47] expand?
[1:15:48] So, B&G, we don't...
[1:15:50] I don't really need for admin growth, meaning offices, or administrative support, FTEs.
[1:15:58] So we'll have more than enough office space in here.
[1:16:01] This big room back here becomes our tech break room and they're sort of where they clock
[1:16:06] in and out where they can hang out.
[1:16:08] So this pretty much gives B&G admin space forever.
[1:16:13] So basically 4,000 for admin and then you're going to need that's what we're seeing.
[1:16:16] And then the additional space would be like shop.
[1:16:19] Yeah, would be square-footed, feet, and probably 20 to 20 to 30,000 square feet.
[1:16:25] And I'll go over that towards the end here.
[1:16:26] You'll see it.
[1:16:27] Four just the shop.
[1:16:29] Okay.
[1:16:29] And then the public defender you have basically 14,000 is that for expansion as well
[1:16:36] because you've got, basically, 37.
[1:16:39] They, well, so this plan increases their space by about 5,000 square feet.
[1:16:46] This plane does, but not from the bank, from this building.
[1:16:51] So how much square feet do they have the bank right now?
[1:16:53] They have 19 to 21,000.
[1:16:58] Okay, so then with that they would have basically 15,000.
[1:17:04] And they still have room to expand.
[1:17:07] This gives them up to 55 total spaces, which again, when I talked to Eric,
[1:17:14] that was kind of the number that he threw out at me for what, you know, long-term growth.
[1:17:20] So basically, the admin space for you, plus them, would be about 18, let's just say 20.
[1:17:27] And then you'd have 20,000 that you really didn't need more office space, you needed more space
[1:17:33] to put equipment.
[1:17:35] Correct.
[1:17:36] Okay.
[1:17:36] Mr. Chair.
[1:17:38] Commissioner.
[1:17:38] Can you go to the Edman 3rd floor public defender?
[1:17:45] So there's 10,000 44 square feet.
[1:17:48] What's currently in that space right now?
[1:17:51] How much square feet currently?
[1:17:52] No, I just wondered, well, there's only a few states of turnies offices in here because they
[1:17:58] were outgrowing their space on 3rd and 4th floor, so we moved some of them over here.
[1:18:03] So that entire 10,000 square feet would be available?
[1:18:06] Oh, yeah, because so these, these people, the state's attorneys offices would either move back into
[1:18:13] 34th floor or they would go down to the new space, however, Laura, Laura, Davies up her staff there.
[1:18:19] So, but yes, this entire space would be public defender only.
[1:18:23] So, then right now, they've got 36 employees, and that'd be about 10,000 or 13,700 square feet, so that'd be about
[1:18:34] 380 square feet per employee at direct because that takes into public waiting spaces. It also takes into one-on-one interview rooms and things like that that they utilize for their
[1:18:46] I juveniles or other clients that they bring in and that aligns with that 300 square foot that we're trying to actually for target. Yes, correct. Yep
[1:18:56] Yep
[1:18:57] I guess what the commissioners need to do is we need to go to each one of these powers and physically
[1:19:02] Look at it. Sure. Understand, you know, the space that's in this building that's probably being
[1:19:08] underutilized. Yeah, no, it is. And we can do that any time.
[1:19:13] I'm most good. So, now, any questions about the current admin building, any questions here?
[1:19:22] Okay. PSB, I'm not going to go over this memo in great detail, but this gives you a real breakdown of
[1:19:29] everything I'm going to be talking about here.
[1:19:33] Can I interrupt you for a second?
[1:19:34] I had a thought and I was talking to the IT department.
[1:19:40] I mean, I'm assuming you've had several conversations with them because obviously they've got systems here.
[1:19:47] They will maintain a footprint here.
[1:19:49] Is that going to happen?
[1:20:02] There's only a hundred employees moving out to cab and they're still 750 down here.
[1:20:08] So they'll be both places. And I've talked to Mike about this.
[1:20:12] Yep.
[1:20:16] Yeah. We've got some more discussions to have, but he definitely wants a few officers,
[1:20:21] maintain here and we're going to be the case with it yeah okay okay so public defender space this
[1:20:34] is the basement so you're going to see over here I got these tabs blue is Sheriff's office green
[1:20:41] is RCPD red is shared so you can see every space down here outside of I believe this is a storage room
[1:20:48] is RCPD is green or the shared space.
[1:20:52] This is a gun range, believe these are lockers.
[1:20:55] I'm not quite sure and I believe this is like a briefing room here.
[1:21:00] But so the majority, well at least half of the space down here is RCPD.
[1:21:07] The rest of this is all energy plant.
[1:21:10] And then this is where RCPD's patrol is because there is underground parking underneath the courthouse for their vehicles.
[1:21:18] And there's no, okay, so has our CPD been in conversation with you or just basically you go
[1:21:25] to Brian on that?
[1:21:26] I had roughly two hour meeting with him a few months back to talk to him about this and I straight
[1:21:31] up kind of told him, you know, the conceptual plan that you guys probably are thinking is going
[1:21:37] to happen is most likely not going to happen, because I really don't want to get into the
[1:21:42] on this yet, but this building was actually going to be the new public safety building.
[1:21:50] We've got one point, but that's not really the path we're going to be going on.
[1:21:54] They've refused to enter the city, a verb city, changed that perspective some time ago.
[1:22:04] I know that they're going to a precinct type organization, and that's probably a good idea.
[1:22:09] That's what I heard is that they're hoping to branch out at precincts, but I know the relationship that our CPD and the sheriff's office have at the public safety building allows for them to have less employees because they're able to communicate and be in the same building.
[1:22:24] So hopefully we can maintain that while stretching, you know, that was another department that don't need to be in contact every day with the sheriff's office.
[1:22:33] That's what I was going to say, because I know the sheriff and the chief out of a very unique relationship when it comes to sheriff and police departments work.
[1:22:41] You know, happy that we get to share in that relationship.
[1:22:44] Yep.
[1:22:45] I agree. I think it does a lot of good. So we need to maintain it. But we also got to understand that the county cannot, right?
[1:22:51] No, I get it.
[1:22:52] Yeah, consume their growth.
[1:22:54] So you'll see it's all broken down up here. Again, I labeled who is down here in these offices.
[1:23:01] So this is the old original jail way, way back in the day jail, so this has Sheriff's office
[1:23:09] personnel in it and then this vacated space, potentially vacated space yellow is what
[1:23:15] would be moving over to the county admin building.
[1:23:18] So this is records, sorry, this is civil and warrants.
[1:23:24] So the other half of this floor is pretty much all occupied by Sheriff's office outside of
[1:23:31] RCPD employee.
[1:23:34] Second floor, again, it's kind of looks like the game Twister now that I'm looking at it,
[1:23:39] but this has, it's broken up all over the place, but what I would emphasize here is this
[1:23:46] is the records, people group, the yellow group, that would potentially be moving over.
[1:23:52] So just to recap, yellow would be potentially vacated and moved over to the county admin building
[1:23:58] into those spaces that I showed were vacant.
[1:24:02] And then you can see the red spaces shared,
[1:24:04] blue space is a share of softest and green spaces RCPD.
[1:24:09] So it's a Divid up pretty equally there.
[1:24:11] Again, Divid up pretty equally here again.
[1:24:15] On this floor, third floor, you have RCPD investigations
[1:24:18] and share of softest investigations.
[1:24:20] So I know there's a lot of communication
[1:24:24] and inner workings that happen here
[1:24:26] that I think need to be maintained.
[1:24:27] But again, those conversations need to come later.
[1:24:31] And then the fourth floor, this is the chiefs and admin.
[1:24:33] So this is, you know, we're sheriff, we're chief of places,
[1:24:36] and then all of their admin personnel, and things like that.
[1:24:40] So you can see that space is divvied up.
[1:24:42] So really, right now there's not a lot of plans for fourth and third floor.
[1:24:46] As you get down here, you know, what we need to try to do is really,
[1:24:52] if we do vacate some of these spaces at PSP and here in the yellow,
[1:24:57] We need to be fruit.
[1:25:00] Before we open it up to RCPD to make sure we're accounting for our growth.
[1:25:07] So I attach these aerial views, and this is sort of my long shot here at future B&G building.
[1:25:16] So these are the two lots right here. You can kind of see the lot line right here that I left open.
[1:25:21] We purchased both of these lots with the bank building. The bank building is right up here in the corner.
[1:25:29] there was a first street lot and a Kansas City street lot is how they had it.
[1:25:34] That's how what I looked on the sale purchase agreement.
[1:25:38] This is lamp lighter.
[1:25:39] We purchased this is one but this is actually two tax parcels.
[1:25:42] So this wrecked.
[1:25:43] These were both bought by the county with that purchase.
[1:25:47] As far as I know in the lead,
[1:25:49] the lamp lighter was bought separately.
[1:25:50] Was that lamp lighter a lot was about the hotel for one five.
[1:25:54] But these two lots are two separate lots because they have it on the lead on the purchase
[1:25:59] and the red. What's that? You're talking in the future building in ground. So those are
[1:26:06] two lots. Two lots correct. Yeah, yeah, okay. I thought you're talking with the yellow on the red.
[1:26:10] Oh, no, sorry about that. Yeah, these two were these two lots right here were purchased with with the bank purchase.
[1:26:16] So obviously we would hold onto these whether we purchase the bank or not or I mean sorry sell the bank or not.
[1:26:22] But this is where future B&G building could potentially go.
[1:26:26] It's flat.
[1:26:27] It's ready to be built on.
[1:26:29] I believe we could do it relatively cheap.
[1:26:33] But again, we probably have to match some of the facade downtown.
[1:26:38] It's not like I can just build a big metal building there.
[1:26:40] Now, what could come into play here is we could have space above the shop for admin space.
[1:26:46] Meaning we could eventually take RB and G group and just move them out of cab completely, which opens well.
[1:26:55] If we move from the bank over to cab, we can move out of cab into this building.
[1:26:59] That frees up even more space for most likely state attorneys or public defenders as the, and we'll see what happens there.
[1:27:07] I highlighted this middle section, we need to vacate this alley.
[1:27:11] We become responsible for the utilities in that space, but I don't know if there are any.
[1:27:14] there are some, they'll probably bury some of these power lines, so they'll be some utility work there
[1:27:19] if we do vacate this but then this could expand out even more. And I think really, we call this the
[1:27:24] lamplighter, a lot. There you spin old lamplighter hotel here, that was demoed when we bought it.
[1:27:30] I think this needs to be a parking lot for the county admin building because currently there isn't
[1:27:34] enough parking really anywhere. And this is actually on my large scale project capital project list
[1:27:42] to build this out at some point and I'll be in a rupee on that so it would be like a public parking lot to our
[1:27:49] Well, it would be it would be for staff during the days and you know, I mean, I don't it doesn't we could it doesn't necessarily need to be a public parking lot
[1:27:57] No, no
[1:27:58] We could sign it so it's it's only authorized for county employees. I didn't know what with the need this need is mainly for employees
[1:28:05] We if you look over here at these empty lots
[1:28:08] You'll see cars scattered throughout here
[1:28:10] on a big piece of people going up to concourse.
[1:28:15] We are, but we're still going to have a big footprint down here.
[1:28:20] So, and again, if B&G and the public defenders move over,
[1:28:25] who some of the public defenders I believe utilize this lot right now,
[1:28:30] but they're parked over here, we're parked over here,
[1:28:32] so a lot of us are going to be parking here in the future.
[1:28:36] So, because we're over here across the street at the bank building.
[1:28:39] And I think turning it into a parking lot just makes sense for even shorter long-term, it wouldn't cost too much.
[1:28:47] And we could always build this out eventually, but right now it's just a big, there are apps that people just park all over it.
[1:28:53] So, Davis, not really a question, but then I added up your space.
[1:28:59] So you have 1.8 commission office, square footage, 9.1, vacant second floor with nothing in it right now.
[1:29:07] You have 3rd floor with 3,700 square feet, you have 3rd floor, 10,700 for states attorney.
[1:29:22] So if you add those together with your B&G at 4.4, you get 29,000 square feet that's been
[1:29:29] vacant in this building because where else were we going to put public defender in the
[1:29:34] other ones?
[1:29:35] That was vacant space.
[1:29:36] So, on the second floor, you had 9,000 square feet open, you had another 1,800 square foot vacant opening commission office, and we could have used if we didn't want to use a multi-purpose room, we still would have had 1,800 square feet.
[1:29:54] That almost is about...
[1:30:00] Further, the bank is across the street without spending any more money. So that's what kind
[1:30:06] of was driving me nuts when I was seeing the BKV stuff, because I wasn't getting how much
[1:30:10] a vacant space they had and I don't think any commissioners were or they didn't want to
[1:30:16] know. I don't know. I don't know at this point. But just watching these plans is driving me
[1:30:21] absolutely nuts thinking that we had all this space already. And then we could have just put
[1:30:26] be in G building across the street or at the lamplight or even.
[1:30:34] So I'll just tell you up straight.
[1:30:35] I know we're not supposed to know the way about the past, but that's kind of where Mike
[1:30:39] why I didn't want the bank because he already had conceptual plans and yes, I do still have
[1:30:45] those plans.
[1:30:47] But that's 29,000 utilized space that could have been used without buying something else.
[1:30:54] That's crazy to me at this point once seeing this and still having enough room with concourse
[1:31:00] in this to expand for the future based on the square footage, even if you, and even
[1:31:05] said it, it's 380 square feet for public defender and the average is 2 to 300.
[1:31:13] Just food for that for people that are watching this at this point.
[1:31:18] Thank you.
[1:31:20] Yes, I think we got someone who is Gary bringing in from the ceiling.
[1:31:27] Yeah, the former Mr. News.
[1:31:30] Thank you.
[1:31:31] One thing that has been brought up, but we keep forgetting, is the fact that when we were
[1:31:36] doing this planning back at that time, we was considering the current administration world
[1:31:42] It was going to be basically filled with people from the public safety building and that is
[1:31:49] the big thing that changed when the city arrived at city, you said it not to move forward
[1:31:55] with us.
[1:31:57] I'll just add and I'll keep my comment short, but I think that I agree with Commissioner
[1:32:02] Dura completely relative to that if we have available space, we shouldn't be leasing space
[1:32:09] for anything else, including the 24-7, we should be able to accommodate that program into
[1:32:16] our existing space.
[1:32:20] I also know very interested in the answers to all of the Commissioner's questions.
[1:32:25] I think they were very relevant questions throughout.
[1:32:30] And I, again, agree with Commissioner Roskin-Act, the purpose of originally broad, and
[1:32:37] I'm not sure there's any blame to be spread that maybe we ended up with more space if we was
[1:32:44] being initially planning on, but a lot of that had to do with the public safety building that building
[1:32:51] for us as we thought would look.
[1:32:54] Now, as far as a place for buildings and grounds, I don't favor building a, essentially,
[1:33:02] a shop or a construction building, climb up, bake up lots and we have, I think there's other
[1:33:10] space even out by conglars that something could be built and yeah, maybe it's a little
[1:33:15] bit of inconvenience as far as some of the work was done, but the space is now available.
[1:33:22] Why would we build a new building downtown, as a lesser of it, what all the other buildings
[1:33:29] It's very a value of gain.
[1:33:33] Those are my colleagues saying, I think it was a good
[1:33:35] to agree on the floor.
[1:33:37] Yeah, just going to have a comment based on what
[1:33:39] Commissioner Drew said that I would, I would,
[1:33:42] I'm going to echo I'm not in favor of building more buildings,
[1:33:46] but that's a point of discussion down the road,
[1:33:48] because we have those vacant lots and we're talking about
[1:33:51] if you read elevates innovative district and looking
[1:33:54] at getting rid of some of those buildings for a repurpose.
[1:33:57] And if we were to build, I just don't believe that's the location, but that's a point of discussion.
[1:34:04] So I'm ready to make a couple of motions here, let's go for it.
[1:34:07] So I'm going to make a motion to direct staff to begin exploring a plan for the potential sale of county owned building located at 14 San Jose Street.
[1:34:15] Second.
[1:34:16] Well, motion from dirt.
[1:34:18] Second from adcott.
[1:34:20] All in favor say aye.
[1:34:23] Opposed.
[1:34:24] Same sign.
[1:34:25] Here he is.
[1:34:26] Motion carries. Second motion, motion to direct staff to evaluate operational needs and begin exploring a plan for the potential sale of county owned properties located at 516 4th Street.
[1:34:39] The buildings and ground shop, 517-3rd Street and any other county owned lots adjacent to these properties.
[1:34:46] motion from door and second by HACOT. All in favor say hi.
[1:34:53] Opposed same sign, hearing bird motion carries, bird motion, motion to move forward with the assessment.
[1:35:00] And as presented in author, I staffed to begin exploring a phased plan of a remodel of the county administration building known as cab.
[1:35:07] Thank you.
[1:35:08] I have a motion from dirt, second from ad-cooking, any discussion? All the favor say aye.
[1:35:14] Aye.
[1:35:15] Opposed.
[1:35:16] Same sign.
[1:35:17] Hearing none.
[1:35:18] Motion carries.
[1:35:20] And that, thank you, Mr. Purcell.
[1:35:22] For your.
[1:35:23] Mr. Chair, I got one question.
[1:35:24] Yep, Mr. Roskin.
[1:35:26] Yes, question.
[1:35:26] The lamplighter light in that 20,000 square foot lot that we got with the purchase of 14 St. Joe.
[1:35:32] Can you tell me what that area is owned and what the parking requirements are for, let's just say, for every 1,000 square feet of office to do for this.
[1:35:40] If it's central business district, we don't need the worry about parking, but if we did build a building there, we would have to,
[1:35:47] let's five parking spots for every 1,000 square feet of office.
[1:35:52] I think that's something that was brought up that we can further dismiss.
[1:35:56] Yeah, just follow up. So Davis.
[1:35:59] This is what I mean again, I know all commissioners have asked questions of you and you've talked to
[1:36:04] a siege individually and collectively, you know, on the public meetings about this, but I'm just going to echo what
[1:36:10] our chairman had to say and you did a great job putting this together because I said I couldn't make any decisions
[1:36:16] without having the information and you provided that.
[1:36:19] So I appreciate it.
[1:36:22] Yeah, thank you.
[1:36:23] Dear.
[1:36:23] Commissioner.
[1:36:24] That caught the floor.
[1:36:26] I'm going to be up straight.
[1:36:27] Long time come to have a transparent to us.
[1:36:31] About the needs and not the wants of the county.
[1:36:34] And again, I'm all in favor of building grounds.
[1:36:36] They've been waiting since I've been here, which is 11 years or more.
[1:36:40] For a building for themselves, and now they're going to go in a building.
[1:36:44] That's already, it's not a new building.
[1:36:45] It's this building which Mr. Davis has never complained once since he said, I don't mind moving over there.
[1:36:54] Bottom line is, I'll keep saying.
[1:36:57] Thank you, Mr. Davis. She brought forth the needs.
[1:36:59] You brought forth everything, Mr. Duru, just said as well.
[1:37:03] The information to make a good decision.
[1:37:06] Instead of, we stood for years.
[1:37:09] I'm going to say the past.
[1:37:10] We stood for years, not knowing what was going on and still voting on stuff for cash flow,
[1:37:15] for the county and how much we were spending, and what were our real needs, and we never
[1:37:20] really got the list that we needed to do, and the full scope of concourse of how much
[1:37:26] was going to cost.
[1:37:27] And Travis was adamant about that, that we needed to find the final cost to concourse
[1:37:32] before we even thought about moving anybody or doing anything else.
[1:37:36] So I'm going to give credit to Travis.
[1:37:38] He was right on that issue and the bottom line is, let's move forward.
[1:37:43] I get it with a efficient and effective and a transparent building the ground guy.
[1:37:49] We did have that with Mike.
[1:37:51] He was amazing at what he did, but now we have you and I appreciate you, Mr. Davis.
[1:37:55] Thanks.
[1:37:55] Any other comments?
[1:37:57] Well, let's go, Mr.
[1:37:59] On the cell.
[1:38:00] On the next one, I think.
[1:38:01] You're on the next one.
[1:38:02] Oh, y'all, you'd be part of this one.
[1:38:03] We're going to item number nine.
[1:38:05] items from Human Resources, Ms. Kerr. I'm going to talk about hours of operation study, and
[1:38:13] I think we might get a motion on this today.
[1:38:35] Good morning, commissioners. Carol Bamcroft, Human Resources Director for Pennington County,
[1:38:40] and I have Davis Purcell, is with us as well, because he's going to talk to a piece of this
[1:38:46] as well as Cody Weisman. I want to share with you the research team who has been working very
[1:38:53] diligently on this, that it's Jordan Nab, Davis, Cody, Sandy Sortland, as well as Mike
[1:39:01] Iverson, Alex Purcell, and Sage Nichols.
[1:39:06] So they have done a really incredible job of working through this.
[1:39:11] So as far as we're at right now for this update that we completed phase one and we are just
[1:39:19] wrapping up, excuse me, phase two for the engagement that we have with the public and the employees and starting to analyze all of that data.
[1:39:30] And then the next step is that we will be coming before the board to make our recommendations on the hours of operation.
[1:39:39] And then phase four is where we would like to be able to communicate and plan for that change.
[1:39:45] and then in phase 5 is the actual change implementation.
[1:39:51] And as we've said, I'll warn that this is really, it's a living document, if we need to change any of the timeline, etc.
[1:40:00] That we can certainly do that. So, the data collection that we conducted a total of eight different public listening sessions, and it was interesting because there were some of them. We didn't have any attendees. We did these like at 5.30 in the evenings to try to accommodate people's schedules, but we didn't have any attendees in the first one in Rapid City, and that might have been a timing issue from the timely communicated people.
[1:40:29] didn't have a chance to really make plans for being there, so that's where we actually added
[1:40:34] another one for Rapid City that we learned originally planning, but you can see under each of these
[1:40:41] different ones that we went to the different communities within Pannington County and I think one
[1:40:47] of the big takeaways from that is from our outlying communities outside of Rapid City.
[1:40:52] They were very appreciative that we took the time to come to them and so all told we had
[1:40:59] 28 citizens, and what I'd like you to think in terms of that, even though that number is really small,
[1:41:06] is that at a minimum, they shared with three to five other individuals, as far as what they learned at that,
[1:41:13] and what how their voices were heard, et cetera.
[1:41:16] So I would like you to consider that number being more like around 80 to 140 people,
[1:41:23] who were very aware of what we were doing.
[1:41:26] And then we also did internal listening sessions with our employees, so we had eight of our departments that participated in this.
[1:41:35] Some of them were not going to be affected by any changes in the administration hours of operation, but they wanted to have their voices heard as well.
[1:41:46] So what I'm going to do next is turn this over to Cody to talk about how we were collecting some of the data outside of the listening sessions.
[1:41:56] Yeah, good morning, Cody Wiseman, marketing manager for Human Resources, so this website stats
[1:42:02] here are specific to the landing page that we created specifically for this just to make sure
[1:42:06] that everything was all in one place. So the data comes from May 8th to July 7th of 2025. So
[1:42:13] it was about 3,323 page views, just anytime a user came and visited that page. We also had a web
[1:42:20] on that page it was not specifically any kind of survey on there it was just an open box
[1:42:26] a lot of people to express what their experience is with our current hours we had 99 submissions
[1:42:33] and then we had 91 unique webform submissions so we had about 8 that were repeated from similar
[1:42:39] individuals and then on social media so we ran a campaign from about May 8 to June 24th on that we
[1:42:48] We had 3,352 link clicks over to that hours of operation landing page as far as people who
[1:42:55] actually saw it.
[1:42:56] That's what the reach is there.
[1:42:57] We had about 34,000, just over 34,000 people that saw the post knowing that we're looking
[1:43:02] for this information and about 157 comments and total, 90 of those were unique, same similar
[1:43:10] for the website as those are the people that did not repeat.
[1:43:15] 90 comments there.
[1:43:18] So I'm then Davis actually spearheaded getting the survey card, so we'll let him talk to that.
[1:43:25] Yeah, so these are the survey cards that we had put in the majority of the public facing counters here at the county admin building.
[1:43:34] We did only receive 264 responses.
[1:43:38] And you can see I highlighted the main questions here that the commission would most likely be interested in.
[1:43:46] Question one was, Pennington County Administrative Officers are Open Monday through Thursday, 7am to 6pm.
[1:43:53] And there was, you know, a multiple choice answer here, and you can see, keep the current schedule had just over 100.
[1:44:01] And then, but between a Monday, a traditional Monday through Friday 8-5 or Monday through Friday with extended hours, those were actually about 57% of the responses.
[1:44:12] so preferring a more traditional Monday through Friday schedule is what those came to and then the
[1:44:19] other question was what time of day is most convenient to you and this is important I think because
[1:44:24] it shows here that the early morning and late afternoon where those were mostly the heavy choices mainly
[1:44:30] early morning and obviously we don't have recommendations now but I would strongly urge the commission
[1:44:37] to think about that that those early morning hours are used heavily by the public.
[1:44:46] So our next steps that I think analyzing the data that right now we have about a 30,000
[1:44:55] level of understanding based on the data that we've collected, but we want to drill down.
[1:45:01] I will say, though, and this is up for the Commission's decision, is that it's leaning heavily towards the traditional Monday through Friday.
[1:45:11] And so, that much I know that we are pretty confident that is what the public is asking for. It's just what hours would we be open Monday through Friday.
[1:45:21] And so right now, as I said, we're in the process of analyzing that data, so our target is still August 19th meeting,
[1:45:32] is that we will present that data to the commission with our recommendations and the options that we see that you can make your decision.
[1:45:42] And then in that August 19th, if you're ready to make the decision on what that should be,
[1:45:47] that then we will begin the communications with staff and to the public, so those are our next steps.
[1:45:56] Thank you. I'll start with the commissioner during I'm assuming that everybody wants to input something into this.
[1:46:05] Do we have any public comment on this one? No. No public comment.
[1:46:11] Or discussion I'm going to make a motion. I moved it effective with the relocation of the
[1:46:16] course property in the fall of 2025, Pennington County Administrative Office is located at Concourse,
[1:46:24] I'll operate at a Monday through Friday. Work week hours of operation will be determined with
[1:46:31] the recommendation from staff and approved by the Board. Second. Well, motion to go back to
[1:46:38] additional work we can have the hours determined when we have more input from the staff. So
[1:46:45] input on that. Good motion. Okay. Commission Jews, you have any input on answer.
[1:46:53] Why input would be is that I think we're maybe a little bit early. I think you got
[1:46:57] bullshit. I would have deferred away to all the rest of the information comes in of our
[1:47:02] press 19. Okay. I listen. Thank you, Mr. Commissioners. I have a comment in the comments.
[1:47:08] I'm ready to make a change. I mean, I see how many inputs we've had. I've had that many inputs on my Facebook
[1:47:15] I look at my telephone and my text message alone that says to switch it back to a traditional
[1:47:22] work week.
[1:47:23] On the hours, I'm open for discussion on that.
[1:47:27] The city is open 7.30 to 4.30 to tax both ends, it gives peers, you know, our title
[1:47:34] department closes at 4 o'clock and peers, so that obstructs some of the conversation that
[1:47:42] license and can have there and but you know the one thing that I want to reiterate
[1:47:50] whatever decisions made we're not walking into these to the department heads departments
[1:47:55] and managing their employees that's up to them and I hope that's you know I'm
[1:48:00] proud and there's been no considerations a Saturdays and I'll think that's even in the conversation
[1:48:05] No, it was some days.
[1:48:08] No, it was some days.
[1:48:10] No, it was some days.
[1:48:11] Some days?
[1:48:11] Oh, yeah.
[1:48:12] No.
[1:48:12] My comment to that is, and I appreciate what Commissioner Dury says to say, but, you know, the
[1:48:18] sentiment in the feedback, if you read what, you know, we're posting on our social media
[1:48:22] in the feedback from the public, and again, you know, I said, at months ago, you typically
[1:48:25] get those people that have an issue with the situation that are most focal, but the, you
[1:48:31] know, correspondence that I've received, you know, since January coming and offices
[1:48:35] been 99 to 1, please go back to a 5-day work week and getting back to what you said Mr.
[1:48:45] Chairman is then giving the feedback as already stating that the public wants us to open
[1:48:51] Monday through Friday I think it's important to telegraph that to them that we're listening and
[1:48:57] so yes we think that we would better serve the public on a traditional work week but getting back
[1:49:03] to the point still leading it up to department heads
[1:49:06] to decide how they want to staff during that,
[1:49:09] and whether or not in the public sentiment
[1:49:11] is the same, whether or not employees work
[1:49:14] four days a week or three days a week,
[1:49:16] or whatever that number is, to cover that service
[1:49:19] is something that should be handled internally
[1:49:21] by department heads as long as they feel they can create
[1:49:25] that staffing to take care of the level of service
[1:49:28] that we need to in the various departments,
[1:49:31] but I think it's important to telegraph
[1:49:33] advance to the public that we're listening and get everybody prepped when we are going to
[1:49:39] make the move to concourse, I think the timing would be most set for going to a new location
[1:49:45] with operational hours and then let you guys come back and make recommendations on what
[1:49:50] that think is best suited, you know, based on all of the other data.
[1:50:00] So, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a couple of comments that I appreciate the motion in your absolutely right. We need to let the public and the employees know, as far as the Monday through Friday and that we'll be working very closely with the department heads and elected officials for their particular operations on helping them to understand some of the ways that they could be creative if they would like that support.
[1:50:25] But also, I know that Cody is teed up already to be able to do a press release as well as a communication to our employees as soon as this decision is made.
[1:50:37] Okay.
[1:50:38] So, Commissioner Hacker.
[1:50:40] So, the history on this is we did the four day work week.
[1:50:43] They were still going to, the employees were still going to work the 40 hours.
[1:50:47] It seemed like it was going to be a great idea at the time because we had Monday through Friday
[1:50:51] and then the treasure's office being the most contentious,
[1:50:55] was going to have more time to do what they need to do.
[1:50:58] Well, what we learned is we still have the lines
[1:51:02] and the contention, it didn't help with that
[1:51:05] to a certain extent, even though the mailing
[1:51:06] instead did open up, so let's be up straight with that.
[1:51:10] But we also learned in that, because the first six months,
[1:51:14] we just, okay, let's try it.
[1:51:16] And then I didn't hear much input, I'll just tell you.
[1:51:18] but the next right after the big election in November and more taxes being paid in October
[1:51:27] that's when for me the money through Friday came to pass. I said, now I'm into Monday through Friday.
[1:51:34] Well, I think we voted on this before and I voted no on the four day work. We get anymore. I like the
[1:51:39] five day. I'm glad we're moving back to it. We've had a lot of people in the last couple of years.
[1:51:45] I'll just tell you to be up straight, but now we're ready from the data again to say that
[1:51:52] customer service, that we always talk about what our mission statement is and for the decision
[1:51:58] for me, I don't care where your end time is for me, but the 7 a.m. is huge. It even shows it on your
[1:52:05] paper the early morning. A lot of people can still do their business and he business people
[1:52:11] a lot of times want to go and come in at seven not five because they were out or they have
[1:52:14] other stuff to do on their businesses by that end of day. So if you want to do four, four,
[1:52:19] thirty or whatever, I'm in to that. The main thing for me again is the Monday through Friday.
[1:52:25] Thank you, Mr. Hattcock. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed. Same sign. Motion carries. Thank you.
[1:52:35] we'll move on to the next item. Thank you, Ms. Carroll and Cody and we're still waiting for
[1:52:44] that big beautiful website, my friend.
[1:52:49] And we'll move on to item
[1:52:52] 10 items from planning and
[1:52:56] zoning for whatever reason. Can we take a few minute break? I think we're going to bring
[1:53:01] you always the victim of this but we're going to, we're going to take some a break here and I apologize
[1:53:19] Okay, he's on.
[1:53:20] He's on.
[1:53:21] So,
[1:53:23] you ready to roll?
[1:53:24] Pretty.
[1:53:26] You got the floor for...
[1:53:32] I'm sorry.
[1:53:32] You're not bringing a little bit of work.
[1:53:34] Motion for Board of Adjustment.
[1:53:36] Take it.
[1:53:38] We have a motion from...
[1:53:40] There, second by headcock.
[1:53:41] All in favor say aye.
[1:53:43] Aye.
[1:53:44] Opposed.
[1:53:44] Same side here.
[1:53:45] And none.
[1:53:46] Motion carries.
[1:53:46] We are...
[1:53:47] Move on to item...
[1:53:50] Ten.
[1:53:51] audience from Planning and the Zoning.
[1:53:55] Megan Tellmage, planner.
[1:53:57] Jenna item A is variants COVA 25-0012 and it's
[1:54:02] to allow a 5.02 acre lot in agriculture
[1:54:04] zoning district.
[1:54:06] The applicant is G.J. H. Branch and their
[1:54:09] surveyor and agent is avid for engineering.
[1:54:14] And they are here today.
[1:54:17] The current zoning is agriculture district,
[1:54:20] this is off of white buff low, and it has no flood hazard.
[1:54:25] You moved your microphone down, so I think Gary can hear you?
[1:54:28] Yeah, thank you.
[1:54:29] Thank you.
[1:54:32] The applicant is requesting a lot of size variance to allow a 5.0 to acre lot in agriculture
[1:54:38] zoning district.
[1:54:41] When looking at variances staff takes a two prong approach and those two prongs are listed
[1:54:47] on-screen, there is no special condition that exists.
[1:54:51] two four staff.
[1:55:00] This variance.
[1:55:04] But the applicant has also submitted a layout plan for this 5.0 to acre lot, as well as a city preliminary subdivision plans since this is within the city's three mile, or it touches the city's three mile planning jurisdiction.
[1:55:21] The future land use on this lot is agriculture zoning district, which requires a, sorry, excuse me.
[1:55:32] The future land use is ranchet zoning district, which is five acres.
[1:55:36] So they would be going down to the five acres and staff recommends denial as the property can be
[1:55:50] not part to me, because if the future land use is a ranch yet, five acres would be like a ranch yet.
[1:55:56] Yes. So, they are requesting a lot size variants to remain agriculture district in a five acre lot.
[1:56:03] But their future land use actually supports a rezone rather than a variance.
[1:56:09] A rezone versus a variance. Okay. Thank you. I understand.
[1:56:14] Any other questions from who's the applicant here?
[1:56:17] Yes, right down there. Sure. We have you want to talk to him. I have him. I just like to hear what they're take it. Can John, can you come out and speak for your
[1:56:26] And just identify who you are and who you represent and and give us a little summary, please
[1:56:32] Yes, John van Beek. I have it for engineering. I'm the land surveyor on the on the project is as was mentioned
[1:56:39] We've got a plotting effort that that is kind of unique. It's going through
[1:56:43] through, I'll go back to this aerial view here.
[1:56:51] I think that aerial probably does the best.
[1:56:53] The best job of explaining things.
[1:56:59] So, as was mentioned, this is unique in that.
[1:57:03] It's in the planning jurisdiction of Rapid City.
[1:57:06] That boundary is dictated by the relationship to Somerset.
[1:57:10] So, Somerset has the ability to enforce planning jurisdiction in this particular area.
[1:57:14] But chooses not to in Pennington County, which leaves us with,
[1:57:18] of the two plating efforts here, the desire is to be able to carve out as small a piece of property
[1:57:28] as possible for transfer for residents within the family.
[1:57:35] And we would have really honestly
[1:57:37] preferred a two and a half acre lot size, but knowing that the future land use indicates five
[1:57:43] for this, that's why the request is to only go down to five acres.
[1:57:49] And we again chose to go this route because of some precedence farther to the south where
[1:57:54] there's five acre lots in the General Ag District.
[1:57:59] The access here is off of White Buffalo Road, which comes off of Merit Road,
[1:58:05] and really is part of approximately 400 acres with one residence on it currently.
[1:58:10] The intent would be to to flat off a separate piece of property for a second residence and
[1:58:15] The logic and remaining general ag right now is cattle is run on this entire entirety of the property and
[1:58:23] With the rural ranch at zoning there are restrictions to the number of cattle that can be on the property at any given time
[1:58:29] So if there's just going to be these two residences on the large acreage of property keeping a general ag
[1:58:36] was the most logical situation in this instance. Joel here at the landowner is available as well
[1:58:43] if you guys have any questions. Just to rush, can I could still love the floor story?
[1:58:46] So the goal is just to create a lot one. It's not to create a lot one and then next year
[1:58:53] do the lot next to it and do a lot two and three. It's just a one time.
[1:58:58] Correct. If the goal was correct. If the goal was 25 acre lots, the change in zoning would make sense
[1:59:05] and be appropriate.
[1:59:07] In this case, the goal is to make one, five-acre lot,
[1:59:12] and the other resident stays on the balance of the 80,
[1:59:15] contiguous with the rest of the ranch.
[1:59:18] So a variance grant the day would save you the time
[1:59:21] and process to go through a resone of the property,
[1:59:24] which would basically end up the same correct.
[1:59:28] If we resone, we'd end up in the same situation
[1:59:31] with the same lot size, it just seemed the most logical to allow the cattle number of cattle
[1:59:39] being on the property at any one time. That's how we landed on this particular.
[1:59:44] Yeah, I just wasn't sure if it was going to be more five acre lots in the future, which would
[1:59:49] probably be better the reason, but it's a one-time, for a special reason, I guess.
[1:59:54] Mr. Chair. Thank you commissioner.
[1:59:57] I was going to commissioner.
[1:59:58] I'm going to make a
[2:00:00] A. H. Ranch LLC to allow 5.2 acre, 0.02 acre, lot size in an agricultural district.
[2:00:09] So, a motion from Durham, a second by Ross Connect, all in favor say aye.
[2:00:13] All right.
[2:00:14] Opposed, same sign, motion carries.
[2:00:17] And thank you for not making me come onto your office and sign something.
[2:00:20] No problem. No guarantees.
[2:00:21] All right.
[2:00:22] When we want to item 11, or is it, is there items in between here and move to variance, item
[2:00:31] okay, item 11, motion to adjourn for Board of Judgment?
[2:00:37] Second.
[2:00:38] Of motion from Derr, second from Hatcock, all in favor say aye.
[2:00:42] All right.
[2:00:42] All right.
[2:00:43] We're going to move on to item number 11.
[2:00:49] TIF application resolution and this is just the commission thing so we'll go to Jordan
[2:00:56] as well and give us a little give us a summary here what this is something we talked
[2:00:59] about at the last meeting asked you to run forward a resolution that we could share with
[2:01:06] the city of our city. Absolutely and so they also do have another application here for
[2:01:12] your review that would be the Marshall Heard tract but in the meantime we also were working
[2:01:17] And it may not have to be a formal resolution.
[2:01:19] It could be just a letter, which is what I've drafted.
[2:01:21] A letter to the city is probably just going to be as strong,
[2:01:24] voicing the concerns of the board that you all mentioned during the last meeting.
[2:01:28] And so I have a letter right here, a draft version of it.
[2:01:31] I'm not sure if you've had a chance to kind of review it, but let me pull it up.
[2:01:35] Think we've all had it for a while, no, no, no.
[2:01:38] I mean, anyway, I guess if there's questions, let's shoot them at Jordan now
[2:01:43] or if we see some things we'd like to switch up.
[2:01:46] I guess just to reiterate real quick here in the letter, there was concern about the number
[2:01:52] of applications increasing significantly as opposed to when they had the tip committee where
[2:01:56] the county was involved in the past. The impact on the county budgets in the tax base is also
[2:02:01] a concern just because as you know, when you tuck things into a tax increment financing district,
[2:02:07] you take the growth, the increment of that growth off of the tax roles until the tip is paid off.
[2:02:13] And so there is concern that, well, if that's messing with the county's tax base, the county
[2:02:17] probably should have a little bit more say and knowledge about how these things are coming
[2:02:21] about.
[2:02:22] The administrative burden of processing tiffs is pretty heavy on the county auditor's office
[2:02:27] specifically because they have to go through and make sure that all these tiff districts are
[2:02:31] set up.
[2:02:32] And so there's not as much support from outside entities creating tiff districts and then the transparency
[2:02:38] and accountability. This was brought up because the tiff packets application, some of them are hundreds
[2:02:44] of pages long, without a very effective summary towards the beginning. And so just communicating
[2:02:48] that we want to make sure that we've got the accountability for, you know, the board making the
[2:02:53] right decision for the people up front. And then the other concern was about future obligations,
[2:02:59] because of infrastructure concerns, of not properly considering what the impact is going to be
[2:03:05] not just during the 5, 10 years, 20 years that the tip is in place, but what happens afterwards
[2:03:09] when growth continues, when maybe you don't have the facilities that you thought you
[2:03:13] need to have for to support those areas.
[2:03:16] So those were the points that I believe covered everything everyone wanted to address to
[2:03:20] the city.
[2:03:22] So, it's pretty simple to just either authorize this to be transmitted, does the board want
[2:03:27] to sign the letter altogether, just the chairperson?
[2:03:32] I think it should just be the chairperson to sign.
[2:03:34] Yeah, our names don't need to be on it, just runs.
[2:03:37] Okay, that's fine.
[2:03:38] I'm kidding.
[2:03:39] Yeah, the tag line at the bottom would be, you know, the chairman's signature and just have
[2:03:47] for the board.
[2:03:48] For the board.
[2:03:50] Easy.
[2:03:51] All right.
[2:03:51] Give me some help there, Ron.
[2:03:54] Thank you.
[2:03:55] Help me.
[2:03:55] Oh, okay.
[2:03:57] You're letting you sing too.
[2:03:58] Okay.
[2:03:58] That's good.
[2:03:59] So no questions.
[2:03:59] We've got a motion.
[2:04:00] I'm going to make a motion.
[2:04:01] of the chair to sign the letter and send it to the city regarding Tips"?
[2:04:05] Okay, excuse me.
[2:04:06] Sorry.
[2:04:07] I'm ocean at a second.
[2:04:10] Paul and Favor say aye.
[2:04:12] The boss?
[2:04:13] Paul is in the same sign here.
[2:04:14] Now I am motion carries Jordan here.
[2:04:17] I'm going to put Jerries name on her.
[2:04:24] Okay.
[2:04:25] Here we go to item 11.
[2:04:28] Proposed Resolutions, that was what we just talked about.
[2:04:31] Yeah.
[2:04:31] That's what it just says.
[2:04:31] Salt.
[2:04:32] S. D.A. C.c. Resolutions process.
[2:04:38] Procedures for due process, resolution.
[2:04:41] So, yeah, this was brought up not the last meeting but two meetings ago.
[2:04:45] Just in case the board wanted to take the opportunity to present a resolution to the resolution committee
[2:04:51] through the SDACC and have them try to push this.
[2:05:00] This will be basically the last time you can meet as a board to put one of these forward, for this year, sorry, for this year, for the county convention.
[2:05:11] Any resolution?
[2:05:14] I mean for their consideration.
[2:05:16] My name is something again.
[2:05:17] Let's keep pushing on these sales tax.
[2:05:21] Kind of resolution says we appreciate sales tax anytime.
[2:05:25] You can give a sales tax and anything in the past.
[2:05:29] And that has been put on there.
[2:05:31] Let's make a resolution to say we still want sales tax.
[2:05:34] And if the sales tax would help a lot with these tips.
[2:05:37] Because if they create retail then we could actually gain something from
[2:05:41] versus gaining nothing.
[2:05:43] Is it true?
[2:05:44] Yes.
[2:05:45] Commissioner Raskinite.
[2:05:47] And Jerry can relate to what I'm going to visit about because he was in the country.
[2:05:53] We all understand section lines.
[2:05:55] I've got him.
[2:05:56] He's probably got him nearby.
[2:05:59] And to vacate his section line, it takes three signatures.
[2:06:02] To relocate his section line, it takes about 480.
[2:06:06] It's a lot more adverse if you vacate his section line.
[2:06:10] because you're vacating, it should just be reversed.
[2:06:13] It shouldn't take the poor 80 to vacate
[2:06:16] and maybe three to relocate.
[2:06:19] If there's no adverse conditions in doing so,
[2:06:23] and denying anybody public access,
[2:06:24] but that's why I tried to push through last year,
[2:06:27] it just didn't, in the past, really, really, really well at the end,
[2:06:31] but I'd like to explore that a little bit.
[2:06:32] We're encouraging people to vacate it versus just move it.
[2:06:36] Right, I think.
[2:06:37] And they even plan in his audience as, you know,
[2:06:39] This is just backwards, he said it should just be the opposite.
[2:06:44] So just like the, let's see if we could explore that a little bit in the form and put it in the form of a resolution.
[2:06:50] Okay, and Brittany with planning is on and she can take exactly where the wording could be changed.
[2:06:56] I'm not saying it's, there's might be some stuff that I'm missing and that's why it is,
[2:07:01] but it just seems to me, everything's reversed relative to the numbers there, which is easy to agree with.
[2:07:09] doesn't make a lot of sense. Okay. So does that solve that for you? Yeah, anyone else had anything they
[2:07:14] wanted me to look into? Now's the time. So 2026 provisional budget would prove to get surge.
[2:07:24] And
[2:07:24] so what are we looking at here? This is the placeholder for the big discussion for budget.
[2:07:31] There can be formal action, there can be informal direction, whatever we need because our provisional
[2:07:36] budget hearing is going to be, well, we also need to schedule the special hearing on the
[2:07:41] 23rd. So currently, you have a planning work session scheduled for the 23rd at 8 a.m.
[2:07:46] We're going to cancel that, planning and zoning is okay with it, and then we're going to
[2:07:50] actually have a budget hearing to approve our provisional budget for 2026.
[2:07:56] Okay, and that would be on what day? That'd be next Wednesday.
[2:07:59] That's Wednesday, is everybody cool with
[2:08:03] that?
[2:08:05] I think Commissioner Ross is going to check in his calendar.
[2:08:07] Because we have to approve the provisional budget by the end of July.
[2:08:12] Yep. We have to approve it between July 15th and July 30th.
[2:08:15] The provisionalness means there's still room for change.
[2:08:18] Yep. We have a long ways to go.
[2:08:20] I believe on this. I mean, looking at what, you know,
[2:08:23] the golf wall coming down the garden house just by a rate of pop out.
[2:08:26] And it's going to hit Jordan right in the eyes.
[2:08:29] So, you good with that, Ron?
[2:08:31] About chapter calendar, 23rd?
[2:08:34] Yeah. We cancel the 23rd.
[2:08:35] Yeah, move to the 20.
[2:08:37] That looks okay.
[2:08:39] All right.
[2:08:40] So that that that that has that.
[2:08:42] So there will be a motion you can say use for that one so that we've got it officially
[2:08:46] because you did set the planning session by motion.
[2:08:49] So I figured a change it will go ahead and do a motion there.
[2:08:52] And it would be to move to cancel the planning workshop meeting on July 23rd and set
[2:08:56] a special meeting to approve the provisional budget on July 23rd at 8 a.m.
[2:09:01] That'd be my motion.
[2:09:02] That second motion by Hadcock just carried.
[2:09:05] Did you were able to get all that?
[2:09:08] We're canceling planning and zoning.
[2:09:11] I'm going to repeat it for her again a little bit.
[2:09:13] Yes, it's to move to cancel the planning workshop meeting on July 23rd, 2025, and set
[2:09:19] a special meeting to approve the provisional budget on July 23rd, 2025 at 8am.
[2:09:26] Okay.
[2:09:27] I bet you.
[2:09:27] So that was a motion by Hadcock second by DER.
[2:09:30] Okay.
[2:09:31] So all in favor say aye?
[2:09:32] All right.
[2:09:33] All right.
[2:09:34] Opposed same sign.
[2:09:36] Here are none motion carries.
[2:09:38] We want to level historical presentation of the
[2:09:42] Level.
[2:09:44] There's something your handle in Jordan too.
[2:09:46] Yep.
[2:09:46] This is, yeah.
[2:09:47] Now we're now we're in the budget stuff.
[2:09:50] So I provided a whole bunch of different presentations here that were requested.
[2:10:00] And it's still kind of preliminary data. It doesn't have the full amount of data that I would love to have presented, but it's a good start because it gives you a 10-year history.
[2:10:10] I wanted to let everyone know on the very first slide. Let's see if I can actually pop this over on the screen.
[2:10:14] One moment.
[2:10:18] Next one, it gives us a 10-year tax history too, which is probably more important or easier for people to understand.
[2:10:25] They all tie together and that's why you want to talk about levy.
[2:10:28] You want to talk about the tax base and you want to talk about the budget because they all
[2:10:32] go hand in hand to give us our revenues and that helps us drive our budget discussions.
[2:10:38] Gotcha.
[2:10:38] So, this is levy, this is a multiplier and as property values go up, it looks like the levy
[2:10:48] has actually dropped a little bit for the last year, two years, which is a killer because
[2:10:55] property taxes went up, property assessments went up in 2024, 25, but the mill levy also
[2:11:01] dropped very little, so that's where the property tax payers were in concerns about how much
[2:11:09] are paying and property taxes, and it did go up by $4 million from $23,24 to $24,25.
[2:11:18] So, and so just a quick explanation of what all we love you for.
[2:11:21] We have six different county levies.
[2:11:23] There's obviously more levies on someone's tax assessment.
[2:11:25] Notice, but these are the ones that were responsible for.
[2:11:28] I've listed them out up above here.
[2:11:29] We've got the general fund.
[2:11:31] That's just for general purposes.
[2:11:32] That's our standard general fund levie.
[2:11:35] There's a maximum for that levie, but that maximum is actually for all county levies
[2:11:39] unless they're explicitly allowed elsewhere, and that's a $12 per thousand.
[2:11:44] You cannot exceed that for your county purposes.
[2:11:47] The accumulated building levy, it's authorized by 7251, and that's for the purpose of acquiring sites, repairing buildings, that kind of stuff.
[2:11:55] It is, we have a specific levy that goes into that, and it is not near the $0.90 per thousand, but that is the maximum levy allowed by law.
[2:12:02] We also levy for a county fair, which is pursuant to chapter 7, 27, and that maximum is 30 cents per 1,000 or not quite near that either.
[2:12:13] There's the county fire for fire protection pursuant to chapter 3431, that's 60 cents per 1,000 dollars, and we're not near that cap.
[2:12:20] The unorganized road levy is for secondary roads and unorganized territories per SDCL 31, 1226, and then the county library services.
[2:12:29] This one is a little tricky and that they don't have a maximum levy listed, but from what I understand the history here in Pennington County is because there is a vote of the people to institute a library levy, you can't just get rid of it entirely without a vote of the people.
[2:12:45] So that means, you can reduce the amount you
[2:12:49] levy for it, you probably can't increase it
[2:12:52] except for growth and whatever CPI you get.
[2:12:55] But you can reduce it down, you just have to make sure
[2:12:57] that you're following the will of the people who voted back
[2:12:59] in 1990 something that they wanted library services.
[2:13:03] And what that amount is entirely to the board.
[2:13:08] So that's the breakout of the levies we currently have.
[2:13:12] And then we can look at how that breaks into our total levy.
[2:13:16] And so you can see we got 69% there is for the general fund.
[2:13:20] 9% goes into the accumulated building.
[2:13:23] 1% for fair, 1% for fire, 3% for library, and then 17% for roads.
[2:13:29] And that's how our levy is broken down for payable 25.
[2:13:35] Do you want to have a question?
[2:13:36] Yes, ma'am.
[2:13:37] On fire, we can increase the levy.
[2:13:39] You could increase the fire levy.
[2:13:40] Yep, you can increase some of these levies if you wanted to were limited by how much we can increase our tax dollar amount.
[2:13:47] But you could individually say, I want to drop the general fund, increase the fire a little bit up to a certain percentage up to the up to the maximum that it could be.
[2:13:56] Well, why I'm saying that is because we're always a certain amount of short in the fire,
[2:14:02] Levy guys, and I think fire is pretty important, and as you see, they're pretty minimal on their
[2:14:08] asking, except for their reserves at this point, because you already know, they never had a lot of
[2:14:15] extra in their fire to do anything. Most of the time that I've been here, we had to subsidize them,
[2:14:20] just to make some of their payroll and stuff, so something to consider.
[2:14:25] Yeah, I guess that all depends on whether or not you want the philosophy of, I want to
[2:14:32] that can only be spent on this purpose, or you say, no, I don't need to let me specifically
[2:14:36] for that, let me for the general fund, and then if need be, you supplement those budgets
[2:14:40] and you can use that money for other things.
[2:14:42] It's...
[2:14:42] Well, fire would be good for restricted, they couldn't be taken way later, because that's what
[2:14:47] happened back in the day, is they, you know, didn't even tired and some other stuff, so it's
[2:14:52] like $2 million.
[2:15:00] Long story short, I think it's something we need to look at, I'm going to get increased fair. We thought that was important and that was a pretty big bump.
[2:15:07] That was a huge bump. But I'll keep saying, for fire, you have 450 to a 500-some fireman that use these services through fire administration that make a difference.
[2:15:19] Yeah, I'm going to make one comment regarding the fire-living that it meet county, the county
[2:15:27] share to support fire services is 40,000.
[2:15:31] They pay the workers' comfort 20 give them 20,000 operational and that takes care of annually
[2:15:40] the ask from all of the volunteer fire departments in the county so anyway when you go looking
[2:15:47] at the fire level and what we're generating on that stuff, you know, look at what most counties
[2:15:53] you're doing and how they operate.
[2:15:56] So.
[2:15:56] I have a comment on that, very just for facts.
[2:15:59] So we have a lot more space and penitint space, meat counties, the, for, um, lamest.
[2:16:07] I'm saying for how many fire departments we have and what we, uh, in the different districts
[2:16:14] of how much we actually can get off them to make districts because we have districts and some
[2:16:18] of those don't have any areas or space or what you say tax base in order to even fund them.
[2:16:29] So how much have they done, how much do they help and meet county in other places, how much
[2:16:33] just as Penny can county have to travel all over to help those other entities because they don't
[2:16:38] enough services. That needs to be considered because we went to
[2:16:42] Custer went to meet we went to a many different areas because they
[2:16:45] don't have an environment. No there's mutual aid I get that but I'm just
[2:16:48] when we're you know looking at increasing levies. Yeah I'll put it in
[2:16:54] effective right here because as you go to this last one here and it talks
[2:16:57] about county comparison.
[2:17:01] Petty county's levy the total county levy 6.009
[2:17:06] Nobody else on here besides that Oglala Lakota even comes close to that number for the levy
[2:17:13] You go back to the percentage of total tax bill
[2:17:17] The same thing. I mean, I mean they do come closer, but depending to county you throw out
[2:17:22] You throw out Oglala Lakota pending to county is the highest percentage of the tax bill
[2:17:27] So yeah, we got some hot room for opportunity here because the total county 11 6.09 and the next highest one
[2:17:34] is 4.2 or 5.5 with Oglala, Oglala, Oglala, Oco, you take them out of the picture.
[2:17:41] The next highest one is Brookings County, that's 4.2.
[2:17:44] And Oglala and some of them get some of them are using some of their pilt.
[2:17:50] As we get for some of the land, the Forest Service land, we get pilt, which is 1 million something,
[2:17:56] and it says you can use it for fire and other things, and that's what we use.
[2:17:59] I'm talking about, this is our total county levees.
[2:18:01] So when we're looking at total overall property taxes,
[2:18:05] I'm talking fire.
[2:18:06] Yeah, okay.
[2:18:07] So I said, I said, way to into that.
[2:18:09] This, when you talk about levees, when you want to increase anything,
[2:18:12] you better look at this whole scenario right here that, you know,
[2:18:17] you use really hot hot county for example,
[2:18:20] our dollars is $41, there's is $49.5.
[2:18:24] Well, if you look at the levees up there,
[2:18:26] Do you want safety or do you want economics?
[2:18:30] I'm not talking about the fire department, I'm talking about anything.
[2:18:32] I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about up there.
[2:18:35] How much are you given to the fairgrounds?
[2:18:37] Are you in to safety or are you in to economic fire?
[2:18:40] Fire, fire, levees are specifically made for those jurisdictions correct?
[2:18:45] You're not going to get a levee.
[2:18:46] What a little city for fire.
[2:18:48] No, the county has a fire, levee.
[2:18:51] The county levee is laid over all non-taxing entities.
[2:18:54] So if there is a fire district or an ambulance district,
[2:18:57] et cetera, and they're living their own levy,
[2:19:00] that fire levy does not lay over the top
[2:19:02] of those other taxing entities,
[2:19:05] it's just like the library levy.
[2:19:06] The library levy does not hit the miscellities
[2:19:09] to have a library.
[2:19:10] It's everybody on the outside.
[2:19:13] So you don't have double taxation over taxing districts.
[2:19:16] I'm saying some districts have no money.
[2:19:19] There's no taxing district.
[2:19:21] This is something definitely we can look at for sure.
[2:19:23] But I just want to lay out that these numbers are good to be able to say where are we at?
[2:19:29] We can look at it and go, okay, here's pending to county where on the top for a total county
[2:19:37] levied by a long shot and dollars spent or dollars, I mean, we're pushing many ha counties dollars,
[2:19:49] You know, and this was the last available data from the Department of Revenue, they have these reports publicly available online.
[2:19:55] So this is technically for payable 2022.
[2:19:58] That was the last time that they had a recap report.
[2:20:00] No, I'm sorry, Brookings County, 26.9, and then Mead County, 26.88, so percentage of the tax bill, pardon?
[2:20:13] And then, yeah, if you go to the slide after that, when you see the breakdown of the total tax bill in that, yes, 27.47 is the county's percentage, but 50.09% of that is the schools.
[2:20:26] And so that's very common in most of the areas.
[2:20:29] The tax bill is almost notoriously leaning towards the school's levy, which, you know,
[2:20:35] the county collects and then gives to them, but doesn't really see anything from that.
[2:20:41] I'm just looking at the role the county plays in the percentage that's taken in comparison
[2:20:48] to every other county.
[2:20:49] is a good chart. You like these chart from? Here in numbers, guys. These really break things
[2:20:58] down. And then obviously this chart here, everybody should be aware of a total tax bill,
[2:21:03] like you'd mentioned. You know, the cities at 12.85, but they collect sales tax, which
[2:21:11] really would help alleviate a lot of the issues with our jail and all those types of things.
[2:21:16] you know, you look at alcohol, consumption, and what that causes in the legal system in
[2:21:22] Rapid City, and in Pennington County. It's insane. We don't collect enough to even
[2:21:31] hardly cover that with property taxes. But anyway, that's a very good lesson,
[2:21:38] they're a very good exercise to handle.
[2:21:40] So we want a budget provisional personnel, over of you.
[2:21:46] Sure, anybody, go ahead and give us a little update on that, please.
[2:21:51] So we were asked to help calculate personnel figures.
[2:21:55] We have been working hard on compiling a bunch of different source information
[2:21:59] to try to come up with some sort of snapshot, some sort of baseline that we can give you guys
[2:22:03] to start getting really rough but estimated figures for personnel costs.
[2:22:09] These preliminary figures that I'm going to be presenting in the next couple of slides,
[2:22:12] they don't include increases.
[2:22:14] They don't include benefit premium increases.
[2:22:17] They don't include any extra shift differential pay.
[2:22:19] They don't include out of class pay.
[2:22:21] They don't include anything other than just what their base wage currently is as it stands
[2:22:26] right now.
[2:22:27] And then for open positions, we calculated everything at a family plan for benefits as well.
[2:22:32] I did give a little bit of an overtime calculation in there at 4% for non-exempt public safety personnel and then 2% for all of the non-exempt personnel that aren't part of the public safety areas.
[2:22:46] That's just a little earmark because you know you're probably going to need to include some overtime, just not sure what that number should be.
[2:22:52] This is just a way I've done it before and the numbers looked kind of close to the way they were coming in with our actuals over the last five years.
[2:22:58] So it seemed like a good starting point to have these grab those numbers off of the five-year
[2:23:03] actuals.
[2:23:04] So those are numbers that a common everyday person would consider fair, I mean, or fair
[2:23:12] as a history of the right, but I was going to say Commissioner Durga had a point.
[2:23:17] No, my comment on that is we made some policy changes that should lessen the liability
[2:23:24] of that over time calculation because we're no longer paying accrued leave and counting, you
[2:23:30] know, sick leave and vacation leave and all of those other leave benefits as over time.
[2:23:36] So, getting back to actual hours worked accounting for over time versus all the leave time
[2:23:43] should help on that number.
[2:23:45] And we'll definitely be working on some fine tuning and really honing in on all this data
[2:23:49] as we move forward through the budget process. I will state that in these figures,
[2:23:53] there were 52 benefited open positions that we had and then some of those we already know have
[2:23:58] been filled but we had to create a snapshot and so our snapshot in time was 16 of 25 so we
[2:24:03] just left it right there and we know moving forward we're going to make the adjustments all the way
[2:24:08] up through September so that we can have really good personnel figures in that final budget number
[2:24:12] so that we're really tied on that.
[2:24:16] I think it's important when you put points of consideration
[2:24:20] and policy provision on new higher promotion and step-in increases because step-in
[2:24:24] increases, I think, without being able to calculate those to a certain extent, have caused
[2:24:31] us some budget increases that we were unforeseen.
[2:24:37] So I think that's going to be huge on how we move forward with the employees and department
[2:24:43] has in order to figure out and keep a balanced budget.
[2:24:48] Sure.
[2:24:49] Watching.
[2:25:00] 2022, or 2022, 2023, just the increase on personnel was 4 million. But the adding the
[2:25:14] all the benefits was another five. So, $9 million. So, then from 23 to 25, or let's say 26, you had basically
[2:25:26] a $10 million increase this day in wages and then we did not consider the 13 million that
[2:25:36] it cost all together for those increases. So when we were doing all the wage scale in
[2:25:42] everything else, you put 3.6 in there but you did not put the benefits and stuff in there
[2:25:47] so what happened is I don't know if department heads did it maybe they did and I don't know
[2:25:53] they did it just through the years on all the exceptions and things we did that it came in
[2:25:59] even from 2020 to 2023, 2026 or 25. That was a $21 million increase and the biggest
[2:26:08] increase was from 23 to 26 of $10 million and that's what I was talking about trying to sustain
[2:26:15] that and how we fix that or some of its basically policy we talked about it, new hire and
[2:26:23] I'll keep saying on the wage scale, I don't think all the numbers were transparent.
[2:26:28] I don't think the numbers fit in with this budget and what is done to our budget this year
[2:26:33] for having to do all these cuts in order to provide for that wage scale and unforeseen costs
[2:26:39] that weren't transparent in budget process.
[2:26:44] And that's some of the things that hopefully in the future and we are correcting that at
[2:26:48] this time.
[2:26:48] but like we said, with stepping creases and things
[2:26:51] and just two hundred and ninety job descriptions,
[2:26:53] how do you provide and how do you make it?
[2:26:57] So it's fair and just across the county
[2:26:59] when Sheriff might have a count and three at a number
[2:27:03] and the highway might have a count and three at another number.
[2:27:07] That needs to be changed on.
[2:27:09] I think even some of the stuff of how we did
[2:27:11] some of that wage policy in order to correct
[2:27:14] what's moving forward and make this county
[2:27:17] So it's not, I'll just tell you, and deficit with wages, because this tells you, that's
[2:27:26] a huge increase for our county to try to hit with, and then we also went through with Davis.
[2:27:31] We have 7.2 employees per thousand.
[2:27:35] We are over double of what other counties are, let alone the national average, is 4 to 5 per
[2:27:43] thousand.
[2:27:43] So, something's got to change in that area for anything county to make us sustainable for the future.
[2:27:49] And we said that last year as well in the last few years, just to make those wages transparent and make sure those wages are accounted for in a hole.
[2:28:00] Yep, and we'll be working as department has to try to refine this data and keep it transparent and make sure that we're being responsible for sure.
[2:28:06] and you have been just from seeing that what you have done has been miraculous just to see the numbers
[2:28:11] and see the numbers as a whole has been good with you and and kenner and then I went through
[2:28:16] some other stuff with kenner on the Davis on how many FTEs so no it's been great to have you
[2:28:23] to in office and to know the factual information and all the data in order to make a good decision so thank you
[2:28:30] Mr. Chair yes so George getting back to the five year approved budget history under
[2:28:36] personnel that is wages and all the benefits tax is included.
[2:28:39] That is everything. That's a full roll-up. So yeah, what I was going to say next is that when I
[2:28:43] calculate the personal figures as I present them here, it includes regular wages. Any bonuses
[2:28:47] like the time-up service bonus over time, as I've mentioned, taxes, retirement workers,
[2:28:53] comp, and health insurance, that health dental life, all the all the insurance as well.
[2:28:57] All right. So the budgets that were submitted to your office for personnel that came from the various
[2:29:03] department, so the budget submission the commission has seen is a total personnel at 73
[2:29:10] million, 768 and based on your calculations. You've got that trimmed down by over 3 million.
[2:29:19] That's what we're seeing preliminarily in the data. We've reached out to all the department
[2:29:23] heads again to make sure that we didn't miss anything that they know about. And again, we're
[2:29:26] still talking flat. Some of them didn't include increases say to health insurance because they
[2:29:31] something needs to increase, but we held all the numbers flat and then from here we're going
[2:29:36] to present what it would cost if we're coming back with a 3% increase for health insurance
[2:29:40] or what a 4% COOLO would be continued step increases. We're going to separate those out so
[2:29:46] that you can see them individually as the pay increases basically the personnel packages
[2:29:50] moving through the budget process. Oh, chair. One more question. Come as you heard,
[2:30:02] What are the benefits that we can be as elected officials and what we're supposed to be getting or what other people have been getting in the past?
[2:30:11] And moving forward, how does that look? Basically, the only thing I thought we had was basically perdium and travel, we could take and then we could take health insurance.
[2:30:24] I want to know if there's any other benefits, if there's four commissioners, if the other five
[2:30:30] have different benefits than the four commissioners, because I never looked up their benefits
[2:30:35] people.
[2:30:35] Okay.
[2:30:36] I can, I'll tell you what you're talking about.
[2:30:39] People like any elected official?
[2:30:42] Well, any elected officials?
[2:30:42] Pretty well spelled out, right?
[2:30:43] Well, that's, well, before us it is, I didn't know if the other five had a different process
[2:30:49] in what they can use besides the four elected if it's all the same.
[2:30:53] I'd like to know.
[2:30:54] I'll, I'll look at it.
[2:30:55] I'm policy.
[2:30:56] Thank you.
[2:30:57] Yep.
[2:30:58] Are you talking about, like, this conversation has come up about the time of service bonuses.
[2:31:03] Those are just for benefited employees, not elected officials.
[2:31:06] Up and by policy, I believe that is correct.
[2:31:09] Just one of them.
[2:31:10] I know of that came up in conversation.
[2:31:12] Okay.
[2:31:13] I hope there's something to get in it.
[2:31:14] There's five commissioners anywhere, so there's another chair.
[2:31:18] Some of this is for discussion and executive session.
[2:31:21] We have personnel later.
[2:31:22] Okay.
[2:31:23] Thank you.
[2:31:24] I'll keep moving on then if that's okay with the presentation.
[2:31:27] But it would be nice to know the policy out front for the public.
[2:31:34] Thank you.
[2:31:36] All right.
[2:31:37] So as we look at the next slide,
[2:31:38] it's a breakdown of the current projected wage for 2026.
[2:31:42] This is based off of our numbers,
[2:31:43] not based off of the department of requests,
[2:31:45] just for clarification there.
[2:31:46] And how that percentage is broken down.
[2:31:48] I've seen in smaller organizations that you get a lot more of a chunk
[2:31:52] as the benefits as the health insurance and everything like that, but surprisingly, we have
[2:31:56] 76% of our projected compensation is wages in salaries, so that was kind of surprising to
[2:32:04] see, because I expected something different. Health insurance still accounts for 10% of their
[2:32:08] total compensation, but 76% in wages is a good thing. What's it supposed to be on average? On average,
[2:32:17] I forgot. I ran those numbers like six years ago, and I think across the nation you
[2:32:23] were looking usually at about 25 to 30% in the health insurance area, and so the rest
[2:32:28] of that would be divided by wages, salaries, and taxes.
[2:32:32] What was that?
[2:32:33] Ars is 10% for insurance costs and 76% into the...
[2:32:38] Is there high in the wages?
[2:32:43] All right, moving on.
[2:32:44] We also looked at, from our list, this was just an FTE account by department because I know that's a number we're trying to hammer down on.
[2:32:52] So I want to explain as well that FTE is the full-time equivalent is different than our total head count,
[2:32:57] because on our list, our head count counts the part-timers as one because it's a head count.
[2:33:03] But that one part-timer could be just 520 hours a year, so that's like a 0.25 equivalent for a full-time employee.
[2:33:10] And so we're looking at some of these. That's why you're seeing a point nine of a person or a point three of a person
[2:33:15] That's just the full-time equivalent in hours and we're trying to get those also
[2:33:20] Honed down. We're not a hundred percent confident in these figures yet, but we're really really close.
[2:33:25] And we're working with the department head to make sure that we've got a good roster because we're going to be moving with the new Tyler system.
[2:33:31] The auditor is going to be working with us to move into position budgeting so that we can actually have
[2:33:36] each of the positions listed when it's open, when it's filled, all that kind of stuff
[2:33:40] and it's going to be in our financial software as well.
[2:33:43] So we'll have really good information by the time we get that launched, but you know,
[2:33:46] we're going through the conversion right now, of implementing the new system.
[2:33:49] And so, given time, we'll get there and you'll be able to sort that out on the future,
[2:33:53] okay.
[2:33:54] Yeah, and hopefully in this budget process, we'll get to know it's caused some confusion for
[2:33:57] some people to understand it, but no, and it comes down to the comment that I've made,
[2:34:02] that we need to, you know, I think we have in the neighborhood of 270 job descriptions,
[2:34:07] and we need to be budgeting based on, you know, the job descriptions, and saying is
[2:34:13] at 50 deputies, 50 correctional, is it to, you know, how many in the treasures office based
[2:34:19] on job title and goes back to Commissioner Hatcock's point, that I believe that the commission
[2:34:25] needs to have a better handle on that because I can see promotions going when we, for example,
[2:34:31] we've frozen step increases for the year we didn't budget for that yet I'm seeing some internal
[2:34:37] promotions within departments we're in and I'll say it again one position in the Treasurer's
[2:34:44] office moving to another level position that 95% of the job description is the same yet that
[2:34:50] employee got a $13,000 pay increase and getting back to what I think Commissioner Ross Connect
[2:34:57] and Commissioner Drew spoke of about a month ago.
[2:35:00] I'm in agreement with that we need to get back to again, I believe everybody's kind of on the same page, the ability of a department head to give up to 12 steps within a year as too much because how do you budget for that across your organization?
[2:35:14] And so I think we need to tighten some of those things down as, you know, we've all talked about it in one form of fashion.
[2:35:22] But we need to get a handle on the personnel.
[2:35:25] And that's the frustration that our Commission offices had.
[2:35:29] And our HR director is at our HR processes.
[2:35:34] And accounting for the employees throughout the organization is fractured.
[2:35:38] And we need to get a better handle on it.
[2:35:44] All right.
[2:35:44] I'll move forward if there's no other questions on that slide.
[2:35:49] So let's look at the personal options at a glance.
[2:35:51] This is just quick overview numbers to give you an idea of what it would cost if we were to add in some pay increases.
[2:35:58] So we looked at a 1% COLA, a 2.9% COLA, which matches CPI and a 4% COLA, just to see what that approximate cost would be.
[2:36:06] As you can see, the 1% would probably add with wages, taxes, all that stuff, about 1.1 million,
[2:36:12] that would be a 1.6% increase. If we just did a 1% COLA across the board for every position
[2:36:17] that's eligible for a COLA. If we went all the way up to the 4%, we're looking
[2:36:22] then in the area of about $3 million, a 4.29% increase to the budget numbers. That's
[2:36:27] not budget numbers. Sorry, to the numbers I've presented. Let's put it that way.
[2:36:32] What you see there though is when we looked at the department requests where they were 3.5 million
[2:36:38] higher than what we're coming up with on the spreadsheet if we were then to reinvest some
[2:36:42] of that 3 million we could afford to do a 4% COLA and continued step increases if the rest
[2:36:49] of the budget was balanced well enough which who knows but I don't want to staff to balance
[2:36:53] a budget on the back of the employees and I don't think that's the boards intent either.
[2:36:58] And so then down below we look at the additional considerations where we look at what the budget
[2:37:01] impact is currently on the books for our time of service bonus for all eligible employees
[2:37:07] is about $161,000 over time, as preliminary budget adheres about $1.6 million, and that number
[2:37:13] could go up or down as I continue to work with the departments on what's a reasonable number,
[2:37:18] because I did with that flat 2% for some offices. We look at the commission office. We're probably
[2:37:23] not going to need 2% in over time, so we're probably going to be able to reduce that down.
[2:37:27] 1% possibly not sure. Other departments, like I believe the register of deeds, has said they don't
[2:37:32] have over time so there may not even be a need for more than a 1% for that. It all depends
[2:37:38] on these individual conversations I'll be having with them.
[2:37:44] So, George, 27% back in the day got a certain amount of raises in the 73% got the other.
[2:37:52] Why I say that is because if you look at the average from maybe like 23, maybe even 22 and
[2:38:01] see the percentage on each employee and what those increases were? Is it fair to say maybe
[2:38:09] I'm wrong that some people got 36% or whatever and some people are still playing the game
[2:38:17] at 4% and the step increase. So some employees got job description changes that changed it
[2:38:25] up or I don't know maybe some little down. I don't know I don't think so. But how does that
[2:38:32] balance out with saying everybody should get another race? Because for me, the people that
[2:38:37] are increasing at a certain percentage and don't get me wrong, if you're getting, like,
[2:38:43] like, Commissioner Durset and we said before, if you got a promotion, if you got, if you ended up
[2:38:49] doing classes if you I got all that but some people didn't change job descriptions and got
[2:38:55] 10 to $12,000 raises some did it because you already know I'm like a say because it's
[2:39:01] not nice anyway so long story short is it fair to say that everybody should get a raise across
[2:39:08] the board if some people stayed at a 3% raise for 5 to 10 years and some got 38% not based
[2:39:18] promotion, not based, and how would you determine that? Because for me, I did run the numbers,
[2:39:24] and I'm not going to say the numbers right now, because we'll be here for a while. I ran the numbers.
[2:39:29] Just in one year, some people got 13 percent, it started at 33 percent, and the average was 9 percent.
[2:39:38] How did you do that plus the increases? So, the steps. And like Mr. Durstead, we've been watching this process,
[2:39:47] at least I have since 21 till 25 and it's been out of line to the point where people
[2:39:55] have got raises and if you look at them 47% some people.
[2:40:00] So how is it fair if, okay, let's say Julie, I don't know who Julie is. So she's been here 10 years and she's ended up doing it. Maybe maybe her performance I get that.
[2:40:10] That's another thing we need to talk about. We'd like to see the performance evaluations of the departments in why.
[2:40:16] And instead of some other excuses that I remember in the back room where I decided I was
[2:40:24] going back there anymore because they weren't transparent and number one they weren't
[2:40:27] reasons why you should be given raises.
[2:40:30] So long story short, how do you make it and maybe Mr. Durry you can answer it?
[2:40:35] How do you make it fair across the board after what we have seen on those percentage increases
[2:40:39] and telling some people you get another increase and you just had 37% but you're at
[2:40:45] What was the average? Three or four percent? Because of the kept saying we were given a four percent increase plus a step, but that's not what happened on paper.
[2:40:55] So how do you do that to make sure the the employees are treated fairly? And that 22 year that 26 year is treated just as good as the one that just got that 80 or 30 percent.
[2:41:08] And maybe there is no rhyme or reason with it.
[2:41:12] But after seeing it on paper and having it ran on the percentage
[2:41:17] and watching the percentage every year for the last
[2:41:19] for sure, three years, it's been crazy.
[2:41:23] So maybe someone and maybe your data will correct that
[2:41:27] or show that a little bit different of how we make sure
[2:41:30] that we can make sure it doesn't happen in the future.
[2:41:33] But what happened to all the other ones that got these huge
[2:41:35] increases.
[2:41:37] Mr. Chair.
[2:41:39] I'm going to take a run at this.
[2:41:43] So, when you're looking at implementing and so, you know,
[2:41:47] Jordan is giving us the percentages is what it would cost.
[2:41:50] And so, when you're doing this, and you're saying that I'm going to give a 1%
[2:41:56] cola, 2% cola, whatever that number is, and then step increases because the
[2:42:01] adopted a wage scale, you take the individuals out of it and you're saying, I'm laying
[2:42:08] this percentage increase, and if it's a cola you put it to the scale. And so it's not
[2:42:14] related to individual employees that have been here for five years or ten years, etc. You're
[2:42:20] saying that in my wage scale I'm applying this percentage increase of a cola to the wage
[2:42:25] scale, the steps will change accordingly, you know, based on those dollar amounts, and I
[2:42:31] think ours is, I don't know, it's not consistent, it's about a 1.5% between steps.
[2:42:37] But anyway, you're not, you're saying, when you're doing that, that you're going to have
[2:42:41] some confidence in a market saying that the market says that this job description pays a certain
[2:42:47] amount, and so then you're just laying it to the scale, and then, you know, everybody based
[2:42:53] on your time and service and we're out in the great and stuff, that's where you're going
[2:42:58] to get that.
[2:42:58] You don't go individually by employee and say, I think you need a three percent, I think
[2:43:04] you need a four percent, you've been your 10 years.
[2:43:07] We have policies and a wage scale in place for that and you only take these, don't look at it
[2:43:12] as individuals and you lay it against the scale and let the scale which should be adjusted
[2:43:18] to the market, look at that.
[2:43:20] And so a snapshot of the market would kind of tell you a little bit about if we're going to
[2:43:25] adopt what that cola is and or what the CPI has been.
[2:43:30] And not typically, but you would relate the consumer price index is typically related to
[2:43:35] a cola.
[2:43:36] And I think that is what is at CPI number 2.9% care.
[2:43:41] And then I think to help out because I got a little bit of a snapshot of last year's compensation
[2:43:48] and study, but this would be a do-out for HR.
[2:43:51] I think they presented it, but to come back, probably, I don't know if she could ever
[2:43:57] ready by the 23rd, but then come back with a breakout as to how the new wage scale in that
[2:44:07] three plus million dollars was implemented across the organization and show hourly worth the
[2:44:15] dollars went, so three to half million, whatever that number is, how much of that went
[2:44:21] to the hourly employees, how much of it went to, you know, exempt employees.
[2:44:27] And I think it helps too, because again, we're going to have a larger number obviously
[2:44:32] of hourly employees versus salary, but looking at how those dollars somewhat historically
[2:44:38] have been laying across the organization.
[2:44:40] And I do know in some conversations getting back to how we decide what we want to present
[2:44:49] for the employees, I have had conversations with the sheriff about looking at a snap
[2:44:55] analysis and looking at, for example, law enforcement.
[2:45:00] Is one, I know that, you know, and I think it was presented last year even when those numbers were presented to give law enforcement an increase that, you know, just local and our general area that they were still under market.
[2:45:14] And so looking at, you know, and I think HR is looking at that, but coming up with a number and saying if we were going to try to inject a little bit more into the scale into law enforcement or if we have other areas that we have major anomalies.
[2:45:30] You know, just at a glance, I think that overall, you know, most of the employees are within market.
[2:45:37] And I agree with the 27% I don't think were, I think, the 73%.
[2:45:43] That's 27% was over the top of what it should have been in the first place, based on
[2:45:50] mark analysis and wage scale, or we mark analysis and compareables, and then you lay that scale, and we never saw that scale laid on compareables.
[2:46:02] We were said we did, but I'll just tell you, and we didn't have all the data I believe to make a good decision for it, and then when this comes out, kind of like the buildings.
[2:46:13] I think, and I'll keep saying, how are you going to make that sustainable with those numbers
[2:46:20] plus trying to add for the next four years, a 4% 3% whatever, COLA, plus try to take care
[2:46:27] of the employees with their benefits.
[2:46:31] I always thought, last year, I'll be up straight, that the benefits should have been one of
[2:46:35] the more positive things, and they should have spent some of the money on some of that wage
[2:46:38] scale and all that study in those comparables and market analysis on taking care of some of
[2:46:43] those benefits.
[2:46:45] Instead of going behind the scenes and adding and adding in adding more costs, and here's
[2:46:50] a funny thing, without changing budgets.
[2:46:53] So to me what it did is by the time they did the wage scale, the unsustainability was by
[2:46:59] the adding behind the scene stuff into where we are today, and when you lay that scale,
[2:47:03] and if you lay that scale, I'll be up straight, I already know from just what I've seen
[2:47:08] from other data that you guys have done, you lay that scale, I think if you say in the last
[2:47:13] five years, because you can see the increase is phenomenally in the last three years of
[2:47:18] 10 million, people are going to understand what I meant by sustainable. And the sad part
[2:47:25] is those hourly rates, those probably 73%, maybe less, 56% whatever. Those are ones that's
[2:47:32] going to be that are going to be the issue with trying to catch up. And that's why I said,
[2:47:37] how do you lay it and once you see it,
[2:47:40] how do you lay it to make it so it's just across the board?
[2:47:44] I'll just keep saying,
[2:47:45] I don't think it was sustainable.
[2:47:47] I don't think for the taxpayers or for our budgets,
[2:47:50] as you see from the 70, some percent that is for employees,
[2:47:55] I'm all in to take a care of the employees,
[2:47:56] but it's got to be a fair Justin.
[2:47:58] Again, how do you do it with 280 job descriptions?
[2:48:02] I've never seen that in my entire life
[2:48:03] and whoever said Mark and Analysis,
[2:48:04] comparable on 288, and then telling, here's the bottom line, telling the department heads
[2:48:14] that don't have the capacity and the knowledge to do what you guys are doing, and having
[2:48:21] them do that was about the craziest thing I've ever seen because I think that's where your
[2:48:26] bottom line came from.
[2:48:27] They did their best to do what they were supposed to, and much of them told me they didn't
[2:48:31] know how to do it.
[2:48:33] Thank you, thank you, Commissioner Hacke.
[2:48:35] Commissioner Hacke.
[2:48:35] Can you have Commissioner Hacke,
[2:48:37] expand on behind the scenes?
[2:48:40] I'm a little confused on that.
[2:48:42] We're talking about budget, or we're getting into a,
[2:48:46] I think we're, yeah, I think I've been off course.
[2:48:49] I'm here for a budget.
[2:48:51] Okay, Mr. Chairman.
[2:48:54] Good luck.
[2:48:55] I would ask if we could just skip that.
[2:48:58] And one thing I would like to see that I think would help
[2:49:01] And if you could get HR to assist with that,
[2:49:06] and that is a five, I see the increases in the wages
[2:49:09] over five years.
[2:49:10] And but what I would like to see is the five-year history
[2:49:13] is to what we've given for, approve, step increases,
[2:49:18] and cost-a-living.
[2:49:20] And so five years goes for coal and step increases.
[2:49:24] And I think last year was just the inflection
[2:49:28] of the way to study that went into it and no step increases and then it would kind of give
[2:49:37] us and then maybe at the same time that you're compiling that put in what the CPI was at
[2:49:43] that year.
[2:49:44] So give a CPI what we said that we were going to give and what the step increases were.
[2:49:50] Can't do.
[2:49:52] Thank you.
[2:49:53] I just want to comment that like I mentioned earlier, it's coming to work around in our
[2:49:56] block more on real block. That's what we are now. So let's-
[2:50:00] We are dealing with what we've got, commissioner, commissioner.
[2:50:04] So when we talked about these increases and what not, is that not some of that responsibility of the department head to make that decision on who gets what based on their contribution to the county as far as their work ethics and what they put in?
[2:50:20] I mean, to me, an employee that doesn't perform,
[2:50:24] doesn't deserve a race, an employee that overperforms,
[2:50:27] needs a little bit more than normal.
[2:50:29] That's the way I always see it.
[2:50:31] So I think that's somewhat fair.
[2:50:32] Yeah, I've got a comment related to that because I
[2:50:34] 100% agree.
[2:50:36] And one thing I know that I've asked HR to work on,
[2:50:40] and I think I had mentioned it before,
[2:50:42] we currently don't have any valuation process in place.
[2:50:46] So I think that that can lead to an issue of morale
[2:50:49] within the department.
[2:50:50] And so if you're just giving step increases and you have somebody that's an underperformer
[2:50:55] and then I'm getting my annual step increase, you have somebody else that is performing
[2:51:00] at a higher level, maybe they deserve two step increases or some adjustment to their pay
[2:51:06] and we're not tracking performance reviews across the county and so employees are getting
[2:51:13] in some departments, I'm not going to say oh, but I know that HR, we do not have a policy
[2:51:19] that says you only get a step increase based on a positive performance review, we don't have
[2:51:27] that in place and that's what I've asked that we work on getting performance review in a
[2:51:32] plan in place and you're getting, it's just not you're getting an automatic step increase
[2:51:36] because the board approved it, you're getting these additional paid benefits based on performance
[2:51:42] and getting back to your point if you're not performing then obviously that needs to be
[2:51:49] deal with, but I'm not in favor of giving, you know, just a carte blanche step increase across
[2:51:55] the organization without having a plan and place that says it's only based on a positive
[2:52:00] performance review on file with the human resources office.
[2:52:04] Well, I'm just going to make one comment and we're going to move on.
[2:52:07] And the point is that we're here where we are because we are, we're going to move forward.
[2:52:11] We've got some good goals for mine.
[2:52:14] one of the goals is obviously the jury pointed out was to have good policy and procedures in place
[2:52:20] that we adhere to so basically want a commissioner or a department head or somebody comes into
[2:52:25] the work at the county is like a plug-in plug they can come in to a solid environment understanding
[2:52:32] the rules and how they're going to deal with stuff, how they're going to deal with employees,
[2:52:35] how they're going to deal with employer raises longevity anything like that will be handled. It just
[2:52:41] takes time right now this budget is taking a lot of our time and I'm going to give
[2:52:45] kudos to Jordan just to getting this these numbers that make sense that I think makes
[2:52:49] sense to a simple to simple to can read these things ago we obviously got some hurdles
[2:52:55] to jump when we are double the employee per you know per population in any other county obviously
[2:53:05] we want to make sure that we're comparing apples and apples and as we go along no defensive
[2:53:10] mechanisms. We are going to make these changes, and that's the reality of it, and then
[2:53:14] going forward, it's going to be a lot easier for the next commissioner, wherever it comes
[2:53:18] in, the next department head, or whoever it may be comes in, and then we're going to utilize,
[2:53:23] and we are going to hold accountable. All about a department, as you've seen today, the beginning
[2:53:28] of it, the beginning of what we've seen today of a presentation. That was absolutely stellar
[2:53:33] based upon the accountability of a person that was put into place by the commission in an
[2:53:38] And it's taken to put control out department and yes, the department has will run their departments.
[2:53:44] The elected officials will run their departments and we'll all be held accountable.
[2:53:48] These numbers, this is the reality I look before, we'll get through this budget.
[2:53:52] And then, you know, like it or leave it or whatever, it's going to happen.
[2:53:57] I'm committed to making this change.
[2:53:59] I think the rest of the commissioners are committed to making these changes.
[2:54:01] So let's move forward, make these changes happen.
[2:54:03] I think there was comments made earlier about, on my board coming from the sheriff's department.
[2:54:09] It's the rest of me 100% I'm in, I want to be part of this team.
[2:54:12] And I think that's the approach we all got to take because we're on this together and we're
[2:54:17] going to move forward and we're going to make it happen and we're going to be a good
[2:54:20] shining example of how government efficiencies can change and take place in a better manner.
[2:54:26] So let's move on to the next item.
[2:54:29] Which is.
[2:54:30] I've got the next presentation.
[2:54:32] It's going to be just a quick history on the outside agencies.
[2:54:34] We have several agencies here that want to give a presentation.
[2:54:37] And that had been requested to give financials and stuff like that.
[2:54:40] So if it's okay, I can give it.
[2:54:42] Yeah, let's move on to this move on.
[2:54:46] So where are we at again?
[2:54:47] What are you saying?
[2:54:48] We're still on.
[2:54:49] Yeah, we're outside agency history as well.
[2:54:51] Okay, outside agency.
[2:54:52] That's an interesting one too.
[2:54:54] So all these are very interesting.
[2:54:56] If you've never seen them before or don't understand them,
[2:54:59] these are...
[2:55:00] I mean, broke down into simple terms. I mean, how much does the government of this county commission have to do with outside agencies?
[2:55:08] I mean, reality is, we got X amount of dollar to do mandated positions and are these agencies taking care of their own business.
[2:55:19] First, before they come to the taxpayers and asking for supplements to their budgets, whatever it may take.
[2:55:25] So that's why we have these presentations to see, you know, obviously we have a finite amount
[2:55:32] of dollars that's available and we have to make sure that they need the criteria that's
[2:55:37] going forward.
[2:55:39] Thank you.
[2:55:40] Okay.
[2:55:40] So I wanted to start this discussion just to make sure that we're all speaking the same
[2:55:44] language and we've clarified a couple of points because there is some confusion about the
[2:55:48] natures of these outside agencies whether or not they're contracted services, whether
[2:55:52] or not they're mandated services.
[2:55:54] And so we don't have a 100% complete list because that line is a little bit blurrious to who is just really a contracted service
[2:56:02] And there's no mandate for it, and who are we granting money above and beyond and so it's
[2:56:08] They'll get a little sticky in this discussion, but I wanted to clarify a few points with this
[2:56:12] We'll do the
[2:56:13] There you go, you used to the sticky
[2:56:15] So this is the list that we currently are tracking of all of the outside agencies that we either have agreements in place with contracts in place with
[2:56:24] or we're just giving money to.
[2:56:27] And so I'll skip past the whole list.
[2:56:30] We don't need to get into these details too much.
[2:56:32] What I wanted to talk about was the idea of mandated
[2:56:35] versus non-mandated.
[2:56:37] What you find is that mandated services
[2:56:40] is what we usually encounter in SDCL.
[2:56:43] We're not rarely ever said you have to give money to this person.
[2:56:48] It is, you must spend money on these services.
[2:56:52] And so we've got several services
[2:56:53] that are supported by a levy, which means these are restricted funds that have to be
[2:56:57] expended on specific functions. Whether or not those services are mandated, usually
[2:57:01] depends on, for example, the county library. It's because the people voted to have a
[2:57:06] library service. So in essence, it's not statutoryly mandated, but the people have given
[2:57:10] that mandate to the board. And so you have to provide those services. But because you've
[2:57:14] chosen to levy a county fair levy, you must, you must only spend those funds on county fair
[2:57:21] stuff. You do not have to contract with Central State's bare ink to do it, but you have to
[2:57:26] provide those services in some fashion with those funds. Same thing with county fire. These
[2:57:31] are paid to fire departments, fall into your fire departments, and we use that money to staff
[2:57:35] county or our county office to the fire administration. And it's not that you have to love
[2:57:40] that county fire, but because you do, you must spend that money within fire services, trying
[2:57:45] to provide the best services you can. And then there are a couple that we have to pay by statute
[2:57:50] because of money we have collected or because of just mandates.
[2:57:54] So SDCL 23A40 talks about indigent legal services.
[2:57:58] This is statutory right for everyone
[2:58:00] to have the right to an attorney, essentially.
[2:58:03] No matter what your background is.
[2:58:05] And so what we have chosen to do here in the county
[2:58:07] is we have our public defender's office
[2:58:09] that provides indigent and other legal services for people.
[2:58:13] We've also got the court appointed
[2:58:14] to attorneys, the private bars,
[2:58:16] that also factors into this stuff.
[2:58:18] And then we have our contract with the code of planes,
[2:58:19] legal services for conflict cases and other legal services, that meets those statutes.
[2:58:25] So the services are mandated, but how the county decides to do that is completely
[2:58:30] at the discretion of the board.
[2:58:32] Then you've got STCL-2510, which talks about domestic abuse.
[2:58:36] We collect marriage fees and divorce fees and certain portions of those are put aside into
[2:58:40] a specific domestic abuse fund, and they must be spent on, given to, I should say, an organization
[2:58:47] that has a qualified domestic violence program, and so for our purposes right here that would be
[2:58:53] the working against violence in Kwevy. They meet that qualification and then that's where those
[2:58:58] services go. That's where the money goes, I should say. And then finally we've got the mental health
[2:59:02] services which are paid as a statutory mandated, but it's two avoids statutory mandated charges
[2:59:09] because in statute four mental health services provider is allowed to charge the county certain
[2:59:16] amounts of money, but if we have a contract to a qualified mental health services provider,
[2:59:22] like West River Mental Health, then we can avoid paying those statutory mandate to charges
[2:59:26] up to a certain point.
[2:59:28] And so that's why we pay for those services is because based on the census, we figure this
[2:59:33] meets the statutory minimum so that we don't get immediately hit with those charges.
[2:59:38] Do you have any questions on that mandated services?
[2:59:42] Any questions?
[2:59:43] So, it's going to be ask a good question.
[2:59:46] If public defender and court-appointed are mandated, what is state's attorneys?
[2:59:52] State's attorneys office is also mandated that they're the prosecuted side, it's a county office.
[2:59:59] I was talking.
[3:00:00] I think specifically about the indigent legal services work, because we had public defender up there. I didn't know if you would.
[3:00:05] Well, that was just to mention that we have an internal office that provides legal services for defense.
[3:00:11] So it's mandated to have. It's mandated to have everyone.
[3:00:15] Sheriff, all the other five elected, what's mandated in a county to have for county offices?
[3:00:23] That will be a different slide, I guess, so we'll have to put that together because there's a lot more of the same thing where it's mandated positions, yes, but then mandated services and how you go about that is discretionary.
[3:00:36] These are mandated services would not specific agencies.
[3:00:39] We can, I can do that later, but I can, I can get you some information on that.
[3:00:45] Thank you.
[3:00:46] So we look at the 10 year total history of those agencies that I listed up there and it looks like we've paid 17.8 million dollars since 2015 to those agencies that does include a 1 million dollar payment to the volunteer fire departments in 2022 and 2023.
[3:01:03] Those are the huge spikes you see there in the graph. I just wanted to make sure because anyone looking at that graph would go wow that's a huge jump and it's because those were two individual payments to the volunteer fire departments.
[3:01:13] So it's actually a COVID-19 area.
[3:01:14] So it was a COVID-19 area.
[3:01:15] It was.
[3:01:15] Yes.
[3:01:15] One time COVID.
[3:01:17] Yep.
[3:01:18] Some of that's one time COVID up there.
[3:01:21] Hm-hm.
[3:01:21] That's just like, and then it drops back.
[3:01:23] Yeah, sorry.
[3:01:24] Go back to that.
[3:01:25] Some would.
[3:01:25] But not all.
[3:01:26] I mean, not a long way.
[3:01:27] Is it drops back somewhat?
[3:01:29] Hm-hm.
[3:01:29] And then in those recent years, also as we discussed,
[3:01:31] we had a hike in the county fair, Levy, and stuff like that.
[3:01:35] So you see those.
[3:01:36] That's why it doesn't go all the way back down.
[3:01:38] And then this was just a quick thing by agency you can go over this at your own leisure
[3:01:44] You don't we don't have to do this from the public's time. So I believe
[3:01:49] Yeah, change by agency too thing you you guys can look at these numbers if you want to later
[3:01:53] And then I was asked to provide specific on the libraries and what the levy revenue was versus what we actually paid them because we do in the
[3:02:02] Library fund and in the fair fund. We have a reserve essentially you that's accumulating right now
[3:02:08] It's building up in balance and the question is always, well, do you want to set that to a certain number that we want to maintain in that fund because it doesn't seem as necessary for the county to hold that money?
[3:02:18] If we're providing these services, we may want to just try to train that fund down to zero every year and deal with everything as it comes.
[3:02:26] So let's just talking points for the libraries in the county fair. Do you know what those numbers are?
[3:02:30] We have projected and anticipated end of your cash balance for 2025 in the library fund at about $197,000.
[3:02:38] I'll bought like the fair.
[3:02:39] And then the fair, 85,000.
[3:02:42] So it's no real significant.
[3:02:46] Well, yeah, the Lyon, having a restricted fund, because typically we have it like for the library,
[3:02:53] we have those agreements and says, we're going to fund this amount, the base rate at 3% every year.
[3:02:59] And then fun to that level. And so when we're paying that out and we still have a balance
[3:03:04] of $197,000, then I would say, we need to lower the library,
[3:03:10] let me collect less. And I want to do that anyway because, you know,
[3:03:14] that's one thing is we get into the budget that I want to look at as reducing the amount
[3:03:18] that we're collecting for the library,
[3:03:21] and then reduce those agreements accordingly.
[3:03:23] Okay.
[3:03:24] So, thank you.
[3:03:28] All right.
[3:03:28] So, any other points of discussion before we can maybe hand some of those out-site agencies
[3:03:33] to go forward.
[3:03:34] Thank you.
[3:03:34] All right.
[3:03:35] Well, I don't know if we had a specific order for everybody, but is there someone here
[3:03:40] from working against violence?
[3:03:43] You're up first.
[3:03:50] Oh, sorry.
[3:03:51] Just stay your names and then what organization?
[3:03:55] Good afternoon.
[3:03:56] I'm Linda Schroll.
[3:03:57] I'm the Executive Director for Wavie.
[3:03:58] And I'm Kerry Burrard, I'm the finance director for Wavy.
[3:04:02] So we're going to speak with you this afternoon.
[3:04:05] Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.
[3:04:08] We're going to talk to you a little bit about who we are.
[3:04:11] I'll start with who we are, what we do.
[3:04:13] And then what our ask is, specifically from the county.
[3:04:17] And then I will turn it over to Kerry who will talk a little bit about our budget.
[3:04:21] And what we, why we need the funding.
[3:04:24] And then we will be willing to answer any questions that you might have.
[3:04:29] So first of all, we are Wavie.
[3:04:31] We have been a cornerstone in this community since 1978.
[3:04:35] We are opened 365 days a year to 24 hours a day.
[3:04:41] So we are counted on by our survivors and our community partners as AC Refuge for those
[3:04:49] We serve. Specifically, we serve victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and intimate partner stocking.
[3:04:58] In 2020.
[3:05:00] We serve 2,752 survivors and provided 35,665 free of charge services.
[3:05:11] One of the biggest services that we provide that everybody knows about is our safe emergency shelter.
[3:05:18] So, when it's in the middle of the night or it's in the middle of the day, it does not matter, and we have a victim that is fleeing, that needs assistance for them, or they're failing due to an encounter of sexual assault or domestic violence, or they're for them, or the safe place they can go. Currently, we are the only emergency shelter that is serving that population.
[3:05:43] Services that we provide, we provide emergency shelter, extensive case management, that includes
[3:05:49] things like safety planning, housing, financial assistance, education, we do a lot of community
[3:05:59] and partner and youth education. We do transportation, we help with rental deposits, we have an attorney
[3:06:09] on staff that helps with protection orders, that and divorce and custody.
[3:06:21] Our ask specifically, we have two asks, one is for $47,000 to cover 67% of the cost
[3:06:32] of our case manager that is embedded in the public safety building.
[3:06:36] the case manager, is there any time there is a call for domestic violence or sexual assault,
[3:06:43] trafficking, she receives a copy of that report, then she attempts to make, she makes contact
[3:06:50] with those survivors and then sends them on to babies so that we are able to continue that
[3:06:55] care for them. That person also is there at the sheriff's office so that they are able to help
[3:07:03] with coordination between the victim specialists and our agency so that we can provide the best services in the best cost effective way possible.
[3:07:13] The other part that we are asking is to continue being the recipient of the divorce marriage fees.
[3:07:21] Currently, we have been, we've used the recipient of those fees and we use those fees to ensure that we're open 24 at 7 so that when our law enforcement or our partners or survivors need a place to go, our law enforcement is there.
[3:07:36] They respond.
[3:07:37] They have a place to take and bring people and we can take over that care so they can go back to doing their job to protect our citizens.
[3:07:44] Miss Linda, could I ask you again divorce and what fees?
[3:07:47] Marriage.
[3:07:48] It's out of the register of your service.
[3:07:51] Yes, they go to know what that dollar is.
[3:07:54] And you know what that dollar amount is?
[3:07:57] It's approximately 10,000 a quarter.
[3:07:59] It varies.
[3:08:00] It can go from 8,000 to 12,000.
[3:08:03] I would say about 40 a year.
[3:08:05] 40 a year?
[3:08:06] OK.
[3:08:06] Thank you, Miss Carey.
[3:08:08] It's hard to interrupt the misled.
[3:08:09] That's OK.
[3:08:13] And then it's part of that.
[3:08:15] funding that we get from the divorce and marriage fees, we use that for our shelter to be
[3:08:22] staffed in open 24-7. We also use it for things like we provide a support group, we provide
[3:08:30] education in our jail. So we're able to go in, we're able to help with safety planning, we're
[3:08:35] able to help provide that education. So hopefully we know a lot of, say, practical back sorry,
[3:08:45] We know that a lot of our, we know that addiction is something that our offenders use to control their victims.
[3:08:56] So, when you go into the jail and you see, especially in our female population, and we have those, those people in the jail, that are there for nonviolent crimes, specifically the addiction.
[3:09:13] A lot of times we know that that is that's part of their victimization, right?
[3:09:17] So that when we're there and we're able to help them and able to give them that education
[3:09:21] we're able to help with their exit planning, help them with safety planning,
[3:09:25] there's a lot more likely that they're going to come to us then instead of returning to where they
[3:09:29] once were, which then helps lower those risks as well.
[3:09:33] And then also our our attorney, we have a attorney on staff that is able to help with protection
[3:09:38] orders, so being able to help with that also helps the county because that's a free of charge
[3:09:45] service that we can provide so that our our attorney's office can continue with all the
[3:09:52] important and criminal work that they have to do, right, just to take that off.
[3:09:59] Mr. Chair.
[3:10:00] Thank you for your service and much needed service and probably it's needed more and more each year with the way things are going.
[3:10:08] So, am I reading this right? The total request is 47,000.
[3:10:12] 47,000 and then to continue to be continued to be the recipient of the marriage and divorce fee.
[3:10:19] So, the ask is 47,000 over what we're statutorily required to provide.
[3:10:26] So Jordan the list that you gave me then would that I have 85,000 that does that sound right
[3:10:35] So that I have the total of under other
[3:10:45] 454 and 459 a total of three bayon or two million 395, 560
[3:10:51] And then he broke that down for me. So then maybe I have 85,000 that's that sound right
[3:10:57] that would be close. It's probably going to be 87,000 though. Okay, I just want to
[3:11:01] just make sure I understood the. Okay. Thank you.
[3:11:07] Any other questions here? Come here.
[3:11:09] No, not a.
[3:11:12] I may be have a question that may be either the sheriff or the
[3:11:15] state attorney could answer and respect regards to this, but it gets back to
[3:11:21] working in the public safety building with the, you know, an advocate and then the state
[3:11:26] attorney's office has, you know, victims assistance and so my question is, you know,
[3:11:33] we're already paying for victims assistance out of the state's attorney's office to provide
[3:11:36] that and we've added over the years, I know, because of mandated law, you know, additional
[3:11:42] staffing regarding that and it just seems like on some of these outside entities that are
[3:11:47] providing a service where I'd be providing that internally with our, you know, county offices so that would be my question.
[3:11:58] Lord, did you want me to take a stab without you? I'll Brian to do this on Zoom.
[3:12:02] Okay. Good morning.
[3:12:06] Well, sort of afternoon now, I'm almost here. Brian, we love Penning County Sheriff and appreciate these guys coming in and sharing their information with you today.
[3:12:13] And we've had a longstanding really good relationship with working against violence here in the community.
[3:12:18] I just try to answer a commissioner to a specific question.
[3:12:22] We do have two full-time advocates that work for the Sheriff's Office that are housed
[3:12:28] alongside of the advocate that the case manager that WAB provides and the WAB advocate primarily
[3:12:36] does intimate partner work and then our victims advocates work hand in hand with them too.
[3:12:44] So we do, we do have two full-time positions that are doing similar work.
[3:12:49] It's a little bit different. There's a little bit of overlap.
[3:12:52] You know, we share in a lot of these higher profile cases. We share the workload.
[3:12:58] But the two other positions we have are primarily funded by grants.
[3:13:03] And they do work for both the place department and the sheriff's office.
[3:13:06] And so it is the way we advocate. I think that they also have a similar ask.
[3:13:10] I think to the city for providing part of that funding to, I don't know if it's the 47
[3:13:14] and thousands.
[3:13:15] I'm sure you can ask a question.
[3:13:17] Commissioner Hattcock.
[3:13:18] Go ahead.
[3:13:19] I think the sheriff had 40 or 44, and then the state's attorney had another 40.
[3:13:26] So is it 40 in the past?
[3:13:27] Four plus the marriage and divorce license?
[3:13:30] No, it's 22,500 from the state's attorney, 22,500 from the county and then plus the
[3:13:35] marriage and divorce fees, which are at 40, 45.
[3:13:38] So that's what adds that to the 80, yeah.
[3:13:42] Okay.
[3:13:42] Because I thought you're getting like 444, because that's when I saw on the budgets, but what it is is your advocacy, like you said, the 22 and 22, which was 44, and then the 40 from basically, and that's why it's in most different budgets, because of advocacy and probably the fees and the way they help stay to turn the helps with you guys, or you guys help stay to turn it with some of your victims.
[3:14:07] So, the ask is not 225, you have listed 235.
[3:14:13] Well, yeah, we wanted a small increase just to help with paid regular increases with health insurance.
[3:14:20] Right.
[3:14:21] And so, you know, when we look at these outside entities, it's going to, my philosophy is going
[3:14:26] to be the same as I go through these.
[3:14:29] Many of the services, some of these, you're asking, we're providing internally with our own budget.
[3:14:34] And then some of these are contracted where they're providing a service and I'm assuming, you know, some of the departments are, you know,
[3:14:43] because typically it's going to be in the Sheriff's Office for thinking that some of these agreements are a better bang for the taxpayer to have a done on the outside versus internally.
[3:14:54] And the other, when you get down to this list and the caveat that, you know,
[3:15:00] On this outside entity funding, is that it's hard to track some of this down when the state's attorney's office is paying, not the state's attorney's office excuse me, when the auditor's office is paying, what is mandated by statute, out of the fees that we collect, and then you have various departments that have a line item in their budget that says outside agency funding, then you have to go down and look at the individual departments.
[3:15:30] see if they're funding anything outside the organization with taxpayer money, and this
[3:15:36] is a, I mean, I've mentioned it since, you know, at the beginning of the year, but I would
[3:15:40] like to see, you know, all of these entities that are non-county, that are being funded,
[3:15:49] that it be out of everybody's individual budgets, and that this is a board discussion, and
[3:15:55] that these are captured in the budget, and there's a way to put that in there.
[3:15:59] So you can at least run that report and see all-out side entities that are being funded and put it in the appropriate category.
[3:16:06] So you have one place to go look for it instead of through multiple park and trying to go through the relied items and see
[3:16:12] 5,000 here, 10,000 there, 15,000 here, and so anyway, those are my comments and
[3:16:20] I know that you guys do great work, but I think when we're talking about what we're doing,
[3:16:28] the county on these outside entities that we're funding and you can listen and I understand
[3:16:34] but when you're listening to the non-profits talk about, we have personnel increases with
[3:16:39] an organization, we have to give our employees, you know, benefits and pay and that type
[3:16:45] of stuff.
[3:16:45] It's the same thing that we're struggling with and some of these went specifically when
[3:16:50] you get down to these non-profits and this is nothing on you, my philosophy is going to be
[3:16:55] same. If the nonprofit can do something that the county can do and it's a better bang for
[3:17:01] the book, I think it's a good use of the taxpayer money. If they're providing, you know,
[3:17:06] kind of redundant services or mutual services or it's something that, you know, as a non-profit,
[3:17:14] the community should support a non-infavorite of taking taxpayer money and then deciding
[3:17:19] for the taxpayer where that dollar is going to be allocated?
[3:17:25] I think yes.
[3:17:28] She's going to bill you out there, Sheriff.
[3:17:31] Thank you, Laura Retzel, State's Attorney.
[3:17:33] I just wanted to make two quick points.
[3:17:36] One in last year's budget, I had the 225 for Wavy.
[3:17:41] In my proposed 2026 budget, I don't have any money in there for them.
[3:17:45] So as you're considering this, please remember that I do not have that.
[3:17:49] my budget for 2026 and then just as a point of clarification, the sheriff's office advocates
[3:17:55] and the lady advocates are crucial for that timeframe immediately after an incident before
[3:18:01] a case arrives in the state's attorney's office, which could be a matter of days, it could be
[3:18:06] a matter of weeks or longer, so they provide that initial crisis advocacy before, typically before
[3:18:14] cases handed off to us and then usually it's a soft hand-off and they're done and moving
[3:18:19] on to the next situation. So just wanted to make sure you understood that relationship.
[3:18:26] Okay. So what role does States Attorney's Office have in advocacy for violence? I mean you
[3:18:37] get it crimes victims officer. I'm not sure. Yes, so we have a victim advocacy department with six
[3:18:47] people in it. One of them is specifically assigned to domestic violence cases, which as you've
[3:18:53] seen from from my other presentations, are my aggravated assault domestic violence is my number
[3:18:58] two highest felony charge and simplest assault domestic violence is my number two highest
[3:19:03] misdemeanor charge. So it's a very high number of criminal cases and certainly criminal
[3:19:09] incidents that connect to domestic violence, which is why this is an important area for
[3:19:14] both the sheriff and I. And like I explained, the sheriff advocate and the way the advocate
[3:19:20] are involved immediately after a crisis. And then when the case comes to the state's attorney's
[3:19:26] office and is handed over for prosecution, we usually take it from there.
[3:19:30] And then, Wavy is more like someone in crisis, like, give him a place to stay, kind of.
[3:19:37] Right.
[3:19:37] Then they would continue to provide ongoing services as requested by that specific person.
[3:19:45] But immediately, when something comes up, they have a somewhere to go.
[3:19:49] Right.
[3:19:49] Exactly.
[3:19:50] And then the state's attorney's office ad, because he, you know, and I've talked to you about that before.
[3:19:55] It's primarily shepherding victims through the criminal justice.
[3:20:00] And the rights, making sure they get restitution, making sure their voices heard in those criminal proceedings.
[3:20:05] And those Marcie's law rights that you've talked about before as either constitutionally or statutorily mandated.
[3:20:12] Mr. Chair. Yes. I guess what boils down to relative to what Mr. Deer mentioned is that we're not duplicating services.
[3:20:20] Waves and service at the county currently isn't providing and they're the experts on this and and so it's a totally separate surface relative to anything that
[3:20:32] The sheriff's department or the state's attorneys offices providing so I think that's what we have to decide on each one of these kids
[3:20:39] Commissioner that was my intention coming forward was to show the distinction and the difference between what I'm doing and what
[3:20:46] Waves and the sheriff's office advocate and I appreciate that. Thank you
[3:20:49] Yeah, just follow common the commonality would be the crisis intervention once law enforcement gets
[3:20:56] involved. We have staff that we're paying to do that both at the sheriff's office level and at the
[3:21:01] state's turn is office level. Obviously the housing, you know, we don't do, but that's as a non-profit.
[3:21:07] That's a service they provide. Commissioner Drew, so either.
[3:21:15] I think you had a flight. I know he has to get
[3:21:18] flight to London. I mean, did he catch his flight? Yeah, he'd hop off at 12.38. Okay,
[3:21:24] thank you. I just wanted to make sure that we weren't.
[3:21:26] I dropped off his plane or something. Was it there, Bevel? I know we did it without a
[3:21:32] shoot. All right, watch out. We don't have any further questions. I guess. Thank you, ladies.
[3:21:38] We just know that you guys appreciate it. We know you have a good service. You did great.
[3:21:42] All right. The next on the list I've got here is the Humane Society of the Black Hills. Do
[3:21:48] have anyone here to speak to that? Yes, we do.
[3:21:58] Hello, on Tammy Barrow's, I'm the Executive Director of Team Painting Society.
[3:22:02] He made society. We bring in about 4,000 animals a year. We are the only open
[3:22:11] shelter on the side of the state. If you heard in the news, other shelters and
[3:22:17] rescues have stopped taking animals in because they're overcapacity. Since we're an open
[3:22:23] we don't have that ability. We still take them in. We provide animal control services. We're
[3:22:32] contacted through Pennington County for that. We also take in rescue drop-offs from both the police
[3:22:40] department and the sheriff's department. About 55% of the straits make up all the animals that we get
[3:22:47] again, about a third of those are from the past from the police in the sheriff.
[3:22:53] So I am brand new into the position, so we are requesting $166,000.
[3:23:00] This was based off of a conversation that happened when I was not here.
[3:23:06] It was based off of that Pettington County took up 10% of our expenses.
[3:23:12] there was an agreement to go from $50,000 to $108,000 last year and then go up to $166,000
[3:23:21] this year. So I got those from the notes from my previous predecessor.
[3:23:33] We'll kind of
[3:23:33] questions you have for me. Mr. Chair. Yeah, my question would be, you know, why did we, why did
[3:23:40] increase from 50 to 128 and 2025?
[3:23:45] Because that was about 3.76% of the expenses.
[3:23:50] And when they went through and figured out that 10%
[3:23:54] of the expenses were from Pennington County,
[3:23:56] that's when they started asking for the increase.
[3:24:00] And they decided to do it in two steps.
[3:24:03] Thanks, Sheriff, has some insight.
[3:24:05] Yeah, it's going to say Brian will take it.
[3:24:06] Well, we had a different contract this last year.
[3:24:11] All right.
[3:24:12] Brian Mueller, Pennington County Sheriff.
[3:24:14] And there's, we probably don't have enough time
[3:24:17] to go over the history of our relationship
[3:24:18] with the agency society today.
[3:24:21] And it's lengthy one, and I've been involved
[3:24:22] with it for several, several years,
[3:24:25] going back to the time that we had a contract.
[3:24:28] We lost the contract.
[3:24:29] We refused to increase it.
[3:24:32] It went up over 100% in one year.
[3:24:34] The Sheriff at the time refused to do that.
[3:24:36] And as the our law enforcement division took over,
[3:24:39] the process, we rewrote our animal ordinance, and we were doing what was statutorily required
[3:24:46] to do at the time, but we're running it through the Sheriff's Office. It was very inefficient
[3:24:49] and we did not have the space and the tools to do that type of work. And so for several years
[3:24:55] We've contract with the Humane Society, and we were at that 50th time.
[3:25:01] And initially, when we set that up, they would have to provide us monthly financials as to how many animals were coming in, what the expenses were.
[3:25:11] And we tracked that over several years. And when we tracked the actual work done versus what we were paying, we were generally within that 5 to 8,000 range, maybe just a little over a little under that 50,000, it was pretty accurate.
[3:25:25] They've had change in the leadership over and over and over again, and some of the reporting that we were getting dropped off for a few years.
[3:25:34] And then, and I don't remember the exact years.
[3:25:37] I would tell you three or four years ago we got a request for a very substantial increase for the amount that we were paying.
[3:25:44] And we went back and looked and I said they haven't been sending us the financials.
[3:25:48] you need to send us the financial, so we can evaluate it.
[3:25:51] I feel 50,000 was fair.
[3:25:54] And then when we got the actual information sent to us, and it was roughly 38 to $40,000 worth
[3:26:04] of the work that was done in the previous year, and they were asking for a substantial increase.
[3:26:09] When I came into office, they asked for a pretty substantial increase, and I said, I don't
[3:26:13] think the work justifies the increase that's being done, and we really didn't have any
[3:26:18] further discussion on it, they just for the first two years, I was an office requested
[3:26:25] our agreed to pay the $50,000. Then last year, we got a request to go from $50,000 to
[3:26:33] $166,000. And basically, an ultimatum to say, if you're not going to do it, we're just not
[3:26:39] going to provide the service to the county any longer. And I said, I don't have an understanding
[3:26:43] of where we're at, how do the expenses go that high and we really didn't have any involvement
[3:26:51] in the board, any of the decisions they were making at the time.
[3:26:54] So we had a pretty lengthy meeting, some of the commission was involved in that last year
[3:26:59] and they sat basically over the last few years, they changed their philosophy to handling
[3:27:05] what was statutoryly mandated and I'm probably using the wrong terms, but basically went
[3:27:11] to a no-kill shelter, which greatly expands the expense related to running an animal control
[3:27:18] shelter, because when we have the agreement in place with the county before, this will
[3:27:23] be off a little bit, but just to give you the philosophy that statutorily you're required
[3:27:28] to hold an animal for a certain period of time, if it's dropped off at the shelter, and
[3:27:34] then our agreement with the shelter was, we would pay a certain dollar amount each day,
[3:27:39] And then if the animal was not claimed, they could make a decision if they were going to
[3:27:43] euthanize the animal or put it up for adoption.
[3:27:45] And our agreement in the past had always been, if they were going to euthanize the animal,
[3:27:50] we would pay that cost.
[3:27:52] And if they were going to do adoption, we would let them keep all the fees related to adoption.
[3:27:56] And then they would incur all expenses going forward, but they could keep all the fees related
[3:28:01] to the adoption and that agreement worked for 15 years.
[3:28:04] somewhere along the way they changed the philosophy of not
[3:28:12] not doing the utilization so they were keeping animals longer their expense
[3:28:15] went up their their needs in their facility went up their staffing needs
[3:28:19] went up and then we just never sat down and renegotiated that again. The
[3:28:24] history on the 108 for last year is I think they had asked for the 166 and
[3:28:31] advised us they were going to cut services if we didn't do it we met we
[3:28:34] negotiated to increase it to the 108, and then my ask at the time last year was to allow
[3:28:44] a county commissioner to set on their board. So we had some input into what the philosophy
[3:28:50] at the shelter was because that's definitely driving the cost. And then we would reconsider
[3:28:55] this 166,000 dollar deal at the budget time. That was our agreement. So that's where we are today.
[3:29:04] I guess the immediate question would be have you received any financial information that justifies any specific call.
[3:29:12] I'm going to like you used to get the cost.
[3:29:15] Well, what their justification they did is they no longer track the information like what we used to do,
[3:29:22] but their justification is they believe that 10% of the animals that they're taking care of,
[3:29:27] but the shelter from the county outside of Rapid City, and I don't know if they still do,
[3:29:30] what other municipalities they deal with or other counties they deal with, and then they put their
[3:29:35] operational expense in and they're asking for 10%. But they no longer track information the way that we
[3:29:41] used to that would allow me to be able to look at it as a peranimal cost. What information did
[3:29:46] used to get? Because I know that they send quarterly information to Rapid City, we could definitely
[3:29:53] in that to you also. Okay. I guess I don't know if it's a bad word.
[3:30:00] Local shelter. Local shelter doesn't mean that you don't kill. It's whether 90% of your animals are adopted out. I've been executive director for five months, and we have only
[3:30:27] 5.6, the holding time for a three-animal 72 hours, so that's, and then we are also,
[3:30:37] we've housed the animals that come in for like a 10 day bike quarantine, and we also
[3:30:43] hold animals that are on hold for cases for animal cruelty.
[3:30:49] So, I know that, when I'm throw this out there, I know that aren't close to people
[3:30:57] They are. It's a very small amount. It's like $16 for dog that's fixed in $8 if they're not.
[3:31:07] We basically lose about $5 to $600 on every animal that is adopted out.
[3:31:13] Because one of our core purposes is to spend a new to animals to help decrease the animal population.
[3:31:19] So we invest at least three to four hundred dollars in medical and then you pay to feed them and
[3:31:28] house them. So even if we adopt animals out, we still take a loss. But the animal going out will not produce any other animals.
[3:31:36] I'm just saying that animal owners overall obviously there's a lot of people that are, you know,
[3:31:44] didn't have an animal, obviously otherwise it wouldn't have a need for shelter.
[3:31:50] If you have an animal, and there's supposed to have a license.
[3:31:55] License, yep, and then Chipm.
[3:31:58] It makes sight of gather that revenue from a license.
[3:32:03] We do.
[3:32:06] It's really an untapped source.
[3:32:08] So that's something that I'm looking into.
[3:32:10] The animals that are raised, that leave leaves, they are chipped and they're licensed.
[3:32:19] But yeah, most people don't unless they're that well suggested at the vet visit.
[3:32:26] Sure.
[3:32:27] So as a services needed, their needs are not wanted, they're needed, right?
[3:32:32] Because otherwise we have to do it.
[3:32:34] So you have to ask yourself, how much would it cost?
[3:32:38] First, to run an animal shelter in Pintin County and take in animals and have staff and
[3:32:45] have a building, then it is to pay somebody to do it for you.
[3:32:49] So that's the final question for us is, Share said, this sucked and we tried this and I don't
[3:32:58] think you can do it for 166 with two people, plus trying to find a shelter and do the things
[3:33:04] that these guys do.
[3:33:05] how much that should be? I don't know if it's 166. The other issue is, um, do you have a
[3:33:11] commissioner on your board yet? I believe Ron was invited. Ron? They invited me and this
[3:33:18] invited me, so. Well, I, I will invite you. Yeah, no, we welcome anybody. If you want, we, uh,
[3:33:24] we'll meet usually every other month. So whoever wants to come, shoot me an email and you're welcome.
[3:33:30] Actually, Ms. Tammy, if you would shoot Jordan or email that way, one of us could be at the meeting that would be good that way
[3:33:37] Anybody that had the time to come see what you and it'd be nice for all of us to see that
[3:33:42] But the bottom line I was asking I guess was Brian could do it for 166 and
[3:33:48] I know you were doing it for 15, but we are the outlining area of Rapid City that has the main population
[3:33:55] The outlining areas aren't that populated is there a lot of animals and is
[3:34:01] Do you have any other ideas then to pay 166 that they're asking?
[3:34:06] Well, I do think if we can get some commission involvement in their board, that I do think there are some things that they could do to save some money and hopefully lower that cost specifically just the last time I look at the financials.
[3:34:18] The amount, if my dog goes missing and it gets turned into the Humane Society and they have to do veterinary work on it and there's certain things that they do I think if you
[3:34:28] based on how many days that's there they do veterinary work, and I pick my animal up, I should
[3:34:34] have to pay 100% of that cost. That should not be a property tax issue. The fees that they're
[3:34:42] charging you to go pick up your own dog for their expenses are a fraction of what I pay to take
[3:34:49] my own animal into the vet. So I think there are some things that they can do that could update
[3:34:55] that they're doing through fees and expectations.
[3:35:00] You can have to be subsidized across the board for tax support. So I do think we can get that amount down.
[3:35:06] There are several statutory things that the counties required to do as a sheriff that I'm required to do with vicious animals and bites and those types of things.
[3:35:16] And it's a well worth contracting with somebody else to provide those services versus handling that with deputies, which is a very high cost way to do that.
[3:35:24] And plus if we hit as all of our discussion today for two hours on buildings to try to figure
[3:35:30] out a location for the county to pay for to do that, I think it's worth contracting
[3:35:34] with the Humane Society.
[3:35:36] There have been a good partner.
[3:35:39] I would like to see a board member on the board to help hopefully influence some of the cost
[3:35:44] going forward.
[3:35:47] There's definitely a value for pending property to contract with them for the services.
[3:35:51] Thank you, thank you.
[3:35:52] That statement goes a long way, so.
[3:35:53] can I just say one more thing? There is a five-year plan that they put in place and part of that
[3:36:01] is we started a membership program to bring in extra income so we are looking at other
[3:36:08] ways to fund it. Not just asking you guys for more money. Well I mean if we're only at 9%
[3:36:14] I mean that's obviously there's another million bucks out there somewhere. I thought people were paying
[3:36:20] So, Commissioner Rosknek has a question.
[3:36:23] Well, I welcome new leadership because I got some complaints last year and I got the
[3:36:28] no more about the Humane Society than I really wanted to.
[3:36:32] And was it chicken?
[3:36:32] Yeah, I think with new leadership a lot of that's going to get corrected and they just
[3:36:37] called me a couple of weeks ago and I just said, you know, you need to call the sheriff
[3:36:40] and the sheriff will put in contact with the Humane Society.
[3:36:45] So welcome to the Humane Society, and hopefully a commissioner there will increase the transparency
[3:36:53] between the commission and the Humane Society.
[3:36:56] But I asked Jordan for a spreadsheet, so I could see the request from each one of these outside agencies.
[3:37:02] What I have on the spreadsheet that you gave me Jordan is a hundred and eight thousand for
[3:37:08] 2026 requests so I just want to bring that to your attention because it's different than this presentation.
[3:37:15] Yeah, because that was the 2025 amount and so I'll make sure that the 2026 amount is updated.
[3:37:21] Okay. So that gives us the scenario as I'm going to be on the board or am I going to be a voting board?
[3:37:26] I'm not going to go other if I can't vote. I mean, I can't be worth my time.
[3:37:30] Sit there and listen. They're all bring snacks.
[3:37:32] I'll bring snacks.
[3:37:35] So you have my comments.
[3:37:36] I think it goes back to what the sheriff said.
[3:37:40] So you know, asking the additional funds from the county, and then we have no oversight
[3:37:45] getting back to his point about operations.
[3:37:47] And so you're just saying, give us money and the taxpayers can fund this.
[3:37:51] It goes back to decisions internally made by the organization about.
[3:37:56] We're going to change our operations.
[3:37:58] we're going to change how we're doing things.
[3:38:00] What that goes increased costs is costs.
[3:38:03] So we have to go out and source more money from donor base or from taxpayer base.
[3:38:09] And so I would go back and have a conversation with your board and say the Board of County
[3:38:14] Commissioners is requesting a seat of the table as a voting member and showing up and giving
[3:38:19] our two cents without having any teeth is getting back to what Chairman Wife and
[3:38:23] Bacca saying is a waste of our time.
[3:38:26] Well, you're welcome, like I said, I can't speak to what happened before, you know, the five months, but we strive to be very transparent and you're welcome, you have a seat out our board.
[3:38:36] And then what is the current agreement that we have in place when does that expire?
[3:38:42] End of December.
[3:38:45] Thank you.
[3:38:46] Any other questions?
[3:38:47] I just wanted to know that if I bet on my phone it's because I was communicating with Gary and then he signed off.
[3:38:56] So, well, he didn't have anything to say anyway, but it's, thank you for your presentation.
[3:39:02] Someone could just reach out to Jordan and he'll get me the information I need to get.
[3:39:06] I'd love, I've got to say the main site amongst all of its episodes and flows because of the atmosphere that they made society has.
[3:39:15] because of people, there's obviously two fields of people, there's the fields of people that
[3:39:20] want to save every dog, every animal, until it naturally dies, which is almost impossible
[3:39:25] to the people that say, hey man, just get rid of them. So the EBS and flow is causes that turmoil
[3:39:30] and for us is practicality obviously, but I think that overall the main society is going to
[3:39:38] great asset to the city of Rapid City and county of Pettington County so that being said
[3:39:44] we'll move forward. Thank you. Thank you. Next item up right. Yep next on the list right now is
[3:39:52] meals on wheels. It's meals on wheels here. Nope. All right moving forward then.
[3:40:00] I'm going to direct them right to that guy who uses the director of meals on wheels. I have no idea why my name was on a flyer. Why my name was on a Facebook post saying, tell me how important the meals on wheels is. I got a land of your mom in a 90-year-old mother-in-law that I've taken care of and through the years my mom had been on meals on wheels. So I decided to delve into meals on wheels. That's why I invited him here.
[3:40:29] If you got something to say to me, come and let's talk about meals on wheels and important
[3:40:35] some meals on wheels.
[3:40:36] I realize on important meals on wheels is because I've seen it in action.
[3:40:42] I've worked with people, I've went out and delivered meals on wheels with the volunteers.
[3:40:46] They have hundreds of great volunteers and the seniors in the community are ones that always
[3:40:51] get overlooked.
[3:40:52] You can see here we spend millions of millions of dollars on people that are not productive
[3:40:57] society, you get in trouble, cause all this other havoc, create violence on people,
[3:41:03] these people, you know, and then the seniors in our community, you know, but obviously
[3:41:08] George Larson is the fellow's name. If you see George, Tony was invited to show up. If you
[3:41:15] want to read another Facebook post or postcard about me, you know, ask him what a cost to send
[3:41:19] out that postcard and, you know, but the point is, is, is, you know, if we're here to help,
[3:41:26] I don't know, I don't know what he wanted from me,
[3:41:28] and I've had over 30 phone calls.
[3:41:30] Probably three of them just sitting here today.
[3:41:32] People call me in the district.
[3:41:34] It's just good.
[3:41:36] You can blame me partially because at our last meeting,
[3:41:40] depending on county council, I asked any of the stakeholders
[3:41:44] here and there's a folks that work for the state
[3:41:47] and whatnot.
[3:41:48] I says, we need to explain why we exist for a South Dakota,
[3:41:55] Department of Social Service, you need the contact, the commissioners, to tell them why
[3:42:00] been in a county cancellation, you know, why we should be there, why we should be funded.
[3:42:06] I did not tell anybody to put anything on Facebook.
[3:42:09] I know you wouldn't.
[3:42:10] I know you didn't do that, right.
[3:42:11] This said you got to reach out to the commissioners.
[3:42:14] That explains, and I said, you're going to need to have your perform and show why you
[3:42:19] need the funds.
[3:42:20] That was.
[3:42:21] We invited him here today and gave him plenty of notice.
[3:42:24] I went further. I started developing further into the situation. Meals on wheels. They have
[3:42:30] contracted the state of South Dakota. They've got over $2 million in revenue to service
[3:42:35] wall and some other areas in the county. And they've failed. So I'm assuming they're trying
[3:42:43] to put the angst on us. I don't know what the deal is. But that's not how I do business. And I
[3:42:48] You're on, I mean, I get it, and you and I would say the same sentiment about that we have, you know,
[3:42:54] so.
[3:42:54] Have a comment on this because I getting back to your point, I mean, when you started getting
[3:43:01] the phone calls, you called me and said, you know, a little acronym to go with it.
[3:43:07] And I said, I have no idea what you're talking about.
[3:43:11] So I went to Facebook and read the post and I'm going to make a comment on it because I think
[3:43:15] it's wholly inappropriate.
[3:43:17] So, on Facebook, Mills, on Wills, and I'm assuming it was a gentleman that you spoke to put a Facebook post out and some writing to go with it.
[3:43:26] Rapid city seniors are in jeopardy.
[3:43:28] They'll let Pennington County cut our kitchens.
[3:43:31] 250 mills are delivered in Rapid City by volunteers every year to seniors in need.
[3:43:36] If Pennington County decides to cut funding for volunteers and revoke access to Rapid City kitchens,
[3:43:43] hundreds of seniors with lose their meals,
[3:43:46] call around wife and buck, and at giving your number,
[3:43:50] and let him know how board meals and wheels
[3:43:52] is in Rapid City.
[3:43:55] And there is no basis for that, you know,
[3:44:00] and so we're not providing kitchen space,
[3:44:03] we're not the limited funding that we were giving
[3:44:06] was coming through the Pennington County
[3:44:09] senior group on aging, whatever that is.
[3:44:12] And so there was a discussion about that, and getting back to your point, yes, there was a, you know, they have a state agreement, that's why we need to look at the financials of some of these individuals asking for taxpayer money.
[3:44:25] You know, meals on wheels, you know, has a contract and existence for over two million dollars with the state to provide services.
[3:44:36] and, you know, a while ago, they were talking about cutting services in some of the rural areas,
[3:44:43] a timber lake, getting up into some of the areas that they supported the state came back and
[3:44:47] said, if you do that, you're a non-compliance with your agreement. And so, I mean, they've made
[3:44:53] decisions internally to do things, but certainly nothing came from this book.
[3:45:00] What they're to say that somehow pending to county is responsible for actions taken, that's not the case.
[3:45:07] So, you know, when you're out there in the public and you're asking for county assistance, I mean, we can have these discussions.
[3:45:15] It's not personal. It's about, you know, the county is ability to pay. And the whole thing I'm going to get down to is the taxpayers elected us to do a job.
[3:45:26] And to be stewards of the money and when it comes down to the budget and the finance and the policy of the county that's what the Board of Commissioners are here for.
[3:45:37] And so then we have to weigh all of the obligations that come in front of us and make decisions.
[3:45:43] And I have faith in my fellow board members that decisions that we're making are not based off of personal issues and those types of things we're going to get down to making decisions.
[3:45:55] and support what the taxpayers are voicing.
[3:45:59] And the other thing I would say about the non-profits
[3:46:01] when you look at those, many of them have,
[3:46:04] you know, state and federal grand dollars
[3:46:05] and agreements in place to fund them.
[3:46:08] And when you look at, you know,
[3:46:10] the amount of money they're asking from us,
[3:46:12] out of this, you know, two plus million dollars in requests,
[3:46:16] and you look at what percentage we are
[3:46:18] of the overall budget, it's not a lot.
[3:46:21] And so, you know, and you hear from these outside entities, it's, say, I need this money for my personal, my operations, my staff, getting back to a comment made, the Commissioner Headcock made, we have statutory obligations to provide services and those are public safety, the state attorney's office, prosecuting cases, you know, infrastructure, so public safety infrastructure and some of the other mandated we have.
[3:46:49] Those are the functions I think the tax fair is you're asking us to focus on and that's how I'm going to look at the budget process
[3:46:55] Like you commissioned during I push I'm just going to add one caveat that wasn't just a Facebook post he actually sent out a postcard
[3:47:01] so
[3:47:03] Trying to be nice to all these ill informed
[3:47:06] Elderly peoples gets to be a fine line because I tried to tell him I don't know what they're talking about and
[3:47:11] So if you're out there, I hope you can
[3:47:13] Anyway, the bottom line is that I, on George's at the last meeting, I said, we need to see a
[3:47:20] full form of, because if you need the money, you need to see that you need it. And so I don't know if we ever
[3:47:26] got a full form of it. I got nothing from the guy he called me, and that was my request. And I believe
[3:47:32] he, George indicated that in the rap city area along, they do 250,000 meals. And I think he said something about
[3:47:43] You know, I'm sorry that I'm sorry you had faith in me when I called him when he finally called me after I told people to call him he finally called me and we had a conversation for about five minutes and he didn't understand anything and what he even did.
[3:47:59] So I just as that point and I said, you know, we'll come to the meeting and obviously he's not here.
[3:48:06] So that's bottom line and I get what you're saying, but there's a lot more that goes to these guys
[3:48:11] And you know, they had a building the they bought a building
[3:48:15] State empty for over a year and then they sold the building and now they're saying
[3:48:19] Telling us we're kicking them out of a kitchen. I don't know what they're talking about
[3:48:23] I'm right. Oh, so anyway that's all I just want to make it a public
[3:48:27] Know what is anybody that wants to listen to that so we'll move on well
[3:48:31] I just want to point out, you know, this particular
[3:48:35] putting an account in Council Bayesian, they provide other services
[3:48:38] and just meals, I just want you to be aware of that.
[3:48:41] Chairman, I think you got the idea for me, because on the movie,
[3:48:45] because the building that they had, and like you said,
[3:48:48] it was empty over a year, we let the movie
[3:48:51] into our building on COVID.
[3:48:53] And it was Penny County Housing.
[3:48:55] We are not running Penny County Housing.
[3:48:57] We have a different entity.
[3:48:58] It's through the state and the federal.
[3:49:00] So, I might some misconstrued what I said, which means at this point they are not only
[3:49:07] state in our building, they sold their building and in Penny's County Housing, and
[3:49:12] then they also expanded.
[3:49:14] At this time, we were looking at, this is before all this happened three months ago,
[3:49:19] or so, that they needed to get a lease and stuff, and so I'll just be up straight, we now
[3:49:23] figured out, we're going through what's called rad conversion.
[3:49:26] So, to be up straight to Mr. George, that building can't just kick him out tomorrow, but it
[3:49:34] can no longer be leased to another entity, so in that rad conversion that we're doing for
[3:49:40] public housing.
[3:49:42] So, some things are probably going to give at their next meeting, which is tomorrow, and
[3:49:45] he will, I'm pretty sure, Brian Howard, he contacted on what was happening at this time.
[3:49:51] So, why they sold their building, why they did what they did without asking.
[3:50:00] During their time where they needed it until their building got remodeled, that's probably where all that misconstrued information went.
[3:50:08] It also, for us, our tenants are always first in Penning to County Housing, and for the bottom line, for the building space, and for the parking, and some other things,
[3:50:20] they're always going to be first for Penning to County Housing. It's not going to be another outside agency. We did appreciate it.
[3:50:27] We do like Penneyton County or Mills on Wheels, but again, it wasn't a permanent location for
[3:50:33] them and we found out it can't be based on HUD and Federal Regulation, so you'll probably
[3:50:39] find that out at our meeting tomorrow or Brian would have already contacted me.
[3:50:42] Thank you for Mr. Halcock.
[3:50:44] I will give him your phone number.
[3:50:45] We're wrong.
[3:50:46] Jay Jordan.
[3:50:47] All right.
[3:50:48] Next on the list is the children home society.
[3:50:50] Children's home society.
[3:50:52] Thank you.
[3:50:52] Children's home society.
[3:50:55] Hello ladies.
[3:51:00] Can you hear us okay?
[3:51:01] You can bring that down if you like.
[3:51:03] There you go.
[3:51:05] You'll get here your better.
[3:51:07] I'm Jessica Boyard.
[3:51:08] I'm from the Children's Home Society at the Child Advocacy Center.
[3:51:13] And I'm Christy Keffler.
[3:51:14] I'm the Director of Outpatient Services for CHS.
[3:51:18] And our ask today is for your continued support of $10,000.
[3:51:24] So, looking at what the services that we provide are to the county, the Children's Home
[3:51:30] Child Advocacy Center and Painting County's History as a long and valued one, and together,
[3:51:36] we care for some of the most valuable children youth and families within our community.
[3:51:44] We provide forensic interviews, those are interviews for children ages 3 to 18.
[3:51:49] We also can provide interviews for our adults with disabilities who have been victims of abuse or witnesses to abuse.
[3:52:01] Those forensic interviews are by a specially trained professional that can actually then go in and provide that court testimony,
[3:52:08] can testify with imports, can provide jury education, but first off providing that interview
[3:52:14] in a child friendly environment. Over 10 years we have provided 1300 interviews for painting
[3:52:23] County. We average about 140 of those a year for painting County. When a family comes in
[3:52:31] for a forensic interview, we also provide advocacy for them. We have two advocates, myself,
[3:52:36] being one of them where we meet with the families looking at where they're at currently what are their immediate needs.
[3:52:44] We have a family that's in a place of crisis.
[3:52:47] They're more likely to become victims again.
[3:52:50] We're going to have a longer cost to that family.
[3:52:54] We're going to have to have more services.
[3:52:56] So we know that the justice system can take a while.
[3:53:00] We never want any family to have to hit pause on their human journey.
[3:53:03] So we can get them connected, whether that's for medical, for mental health.
[3:53:08] We also, once that family needs, but we hope that's the only time that child has to be interviewed,
[3:53:14] we continue services without family, checking in on them where you are.
[3:53:18] Do you have a need now?
[3:53:19] Do we need to make that referral for mental health now?
[3:53:23] What can we help you do?
[3:53:24] And that's not just, well, the forensic interview itself is just the child being interviewed.
[3:53:29] That advocacy is for the family.
[3:53:31] Because when they leave, they're going home with their caregivers or another family member.
[3:53:36] We need to make sure that they are also stable.
[3:53:39] We track cases.
[3:53:41] So for our child advocacy center, we are non-dressed, jurisdictional.
[3:53:45] And we know we have surrounding communities around here that people have moved to painting county from other ones.
[3:53:51] If they have been alleged offenders or been system involved, we can get that connected to painting county,
[3:53:58] whether it's investigators we're working with, prosecution, CPS, or all of them saying,
[3:54:03] hey, we also have this information.
[3:54:06] In alignment with that, we provide prevention and education.
[3:54:09] We have a statewide prevention program since the time of its development.
[3:54:14] We have provided education to over 50,000 adults in 4,000 youth.
[3:54:20] Part of that is talking about adverse childhood experiences.
[3:54:22] how experiences that adults had as a child have now impacted them into adulthood.
[3:54:30] It's also looking at how we can prevent child abuse, recognizing the signs of it.
[3:54:37] We provide training to our law enforcement partners here in Painted County, all of Rapid City, PD,
[3:54:43] and Painted County new officers receive training on Bicarious Trauma,
[3:54:47] how being in that helping role can impact them in the adverse childhood experiences.
[3:54:53] We provide trainings that are free of charge across the community.
[3:55:01] Why we use a child advocacy center is before child advocacy centers came into play. If a child were to report abuse, say to their teacher, then they tell their teacher, and their teacher says, okay, let's go tell the principal, and they have to repeat their story to the principal. And then their principal says, okay, let's now call your parents. Well, the parents may have been the alleged defenders, or they may say, hey, let's now call on enforcement, the child's having to repeat. That can retramatize a child. That can, that can,
[3:55:29] prevent them from that healing journey. With a child advocacy center providing that education
[3:55:34] of how to best respond when abuse is reported, working with our law enforcement partners
[3:55:40] and our prosecution partners saying, okay, we will be the hubhouse. Everyone can come to us.
[3:55:46] That is investing in that. Whether it's CPS, our investigators, prosecution, they come to us.
[3:55:52] We have all the meeting of the minds in one spot that hopefully that child only has to be
[3:55:59] prosecution has what they need for their case,
[3:56:02] investigators have what they need, CPS has what they need,
[3:56:05] and then our forensic interviewers can go so and do so
[3:56:08] as those questions in a way that a child doesn't feel like
[3:56:11] they're wrong for telling, that they feel that they were hurt,
[3:56:15] that they knew that there was people here who could do something about it,
[3:56:18] and that they could leave with their caregivers,
[3:56:21] and their caregivers also had that support.
[3:56:26] We average 350 interviews a year, over the last 10 years,
[3:56:30] Our child advocacy center has experienced a 26% increase in the number of forensic interviews.
[3:56:36] If you see there in 2020, when schools shut down, 50% of our disclosures, that's someone
[3:56:42] reporting their views come from schools.
[3:56:45] Well, it was scary to think schools closing down.
[3:56:47] There's nobody that has eyes on these kids.
[3:56:49] You can actually see that our interviews maintained during that time as well.
[3:56:56] In 2024, of the 347 interviews, 235 of them were female victims ages 0-5, 56 ages 6 to 10,
[3:57:07] there were 113, 11 to 17, 161, and then 18 plus.
[3:57:13] We have six.
[3:57:16] The highest percentage of alleged abuse is sexual abuse.
[3:57:19] That makes up 70% of our cases.
[3:57:22] 90% of child sexual abuse cases, the offenders, someone that that child knew, entrusted.
[3:57:30] We still teach stranger danger, but it's not as valuable as informing them of what can
[3:57:36] happen within their own families.
[3:57:38] This will be a 17% witness to violence, 12% in neglect is 0.03 and we know that children
[3:57:44] may experience more than one type of abuse.
[3:57:49] When we are looking at that budget justification, the average cost per forensic interview is $1,250.
[3:57:58] The National Range is 1,500 per interview.
[3:58:02] We are in a accredited child advocacy center, meaning that every five years we have to be re-accredited to make sure that we are maintaining our standards and our protocols.
[3:58:12] That forensic interview, again, especially trained.
[3:58:16] I could hire somebody next week to be a forensic interviewer,
[3:58:19] but the first time that they will provide an interview could be five to six months down the road.
[3:58:24] They have to have a lot of training.
[3:58:26] And then that multi-disciplinary team coordination.
[3:58:29] Again, we work with our law enforcement, prosecution, CPS, mental health, medical.
[3:58:35] So while in my office, I have five employees.
[3:58:39] There's a huge team outside of that that we are coordinating with on a daily basis.
[3:58:45] Maintaining the equipment costs.
[3:58:47] Our interviews are recorded.
[3:58:50] There's special equipment that we need for that to be able to record it to have it in a live feed.
[3:58:55] As I said, our investing agencies come in to watch the forensic interview.
[3:59:00] And we need to make sure that they are seeing it in real time.
[3:59:02] As it is, they're investigation.
[3:59:04] And documenting those cases and tracking them and reporting, we make sure that we have that
[3:59:10] where the hubhouse of information.
[3:59:11] We have multiple, multiple different counties that come to us and people have now reside
[3:59:19] here before and we're able to put all of that together, which can increase that prosecution
[3:59:23] rate.
[3:59:24] We can help build those stronger cases.
[3:59:26] We can help work with our prosecution so that they can call the forensic interviewers
[3:59:31] and for that expert testimony as well.
[3:59:33] Jordan, I found someone that talks faster than you.
[3:59:36] I'm sorry.
[3:59:37] I'm trying to get it all in and I...
[3:59:40] If you leave me to slow down, I sure can.
[3:59:43] I didn't mean to be...
[3:59:44] I didn't mean to be...
[3:59:45] I'm so good.
[3:59:46] Okay.
[3:59:46] We're gonna see you...
[3:59:47] Ooh, we're looking better.
[3:59:48] I'm trying to get through it, I'm trying to get through it.
[3:59:50] I did send this.
[3:59:51] If you need to reflect later, I'm seeing a pretty awesome point for us
[3:59:54] and try to get on point to us.
[4:00:00] So for that cost effectiveness that cat model prevents the redundant interviews that streamlines our investigations, improves our outcomes for children, while reducing that long-term cause, associated with untreated trauma, extending investigations or unsuccessful prosecutions.
[4:00:19] From January 1 of 2024 to July 1 of 2025, we have conducted 169 interviews for Pennington County.
[4:00:29] If we were to charge the standard minimum of $150 per interview, that would be at a cost of over $25,000.
[4:00:38] For 2025 alone, we have completed 47 interviews for Pennington County.
[4:00:43] Schools start in two months. Like I said, 50% of our
[4:00:47] disclosures come from that school setting. So that's also right now providing that
[4:00:51] prevention education, meeting with our schools, July to August, that's my
[4:00:56] busiest for meeting with schools on what does it look like when a child discoses
[4:01:00] abuse? What do are the signs and symptoms? What are those next steps? And our
[4:01:05] request reflects a commitment to providing best practice services that protect
[4:01:09] children, promote healing and support justice within our community.
[4:01:16] Here are some real
[4:01:17] comments from on the left are from some of our caregivers and on the right are from
[4:01:22] some of our youth. They were very nice and thorough. They made my daughter feel comfortable
[4:01:27] and heard. We appreciate the support in Judge Free Zone here. From the youth, it was
[4:01:41] nice. I felt safe talking here and they made me feel less worried. I enjoyed being able to
[4:01:47] discuss topics that I'm not able to with others. When we have families that come in and we know
[4:01:53] that they're there for something horrendous that they had no control over and when I have a
[4:01:57] youth that says, hey can I come back next week? Hey, when you call my mom, can I come back? I have
[4:02:03] one that organized my entire advocacy room hanging out there and said, wow, it's never been so
[4:02:08] organized, he said, call my mom, I'll be back next week.
[4:02:12] Okay, thanks, Freddie.
[4:02:13] I'm glad that it was a positive experience.
[4:02:17] The total revenue for the Child Advocacy Center,
[4:02:19] so children's home society has multiple programs,
[4:02:24] but that $10,000 just goes to the Child Advocacy Center
[4:02:27] and the services that we provide.
[4:02:30] So for Child Advocacy Center,
[4:02:31] the total revenue of 541,068 total expenses, 552,304.
[4:02:39] The fees collected by the county account for 0.01% of the total revenue for our child advocacy center
[4:02:46] about 60% of the child advocacy center is donor funded.
[4:02:55] We recognize that this, and when I say we children's home society recognizes that this is a specialized service.
[4:03:02] and step up to provide that service over two decades ago.
[4:03:07] Thanks Laura. Thanks for that.
[4:03:09] And providing that service and how important it is.
[4:03:13] And we realized that with a bulk of funding,
[4:03:16] victims of crime act dollars, that fluctuates.
[4:03:20] We still need to be able to provide that service.
[4:03:23] So we have an endowment that can allow us
[4:03:26] to continue with that programming and sustainability
[4:03:29] So that we don't have an interruption in services for our community and for our families within our communities.
[4:03:37] I think I have one more.
[4:03:40] Previously, we received $8,500 from the county.
[4:03:45] It was in like $21,22.
[4:03:48] That's okay, Jordan.
[4:03:48] It's around there.
[4:03:49] That it bumped up to $10,000 per year.
[4:03:52] That funding covers approximately 66 forensic interviews.
[4:03:57] if we were to charge at that standard minimum rate to other counties.
[4:04:02] I think it's important to note that if the number of forensic interviews exceeds this coverage, the service is continued.
[4:04:10] We don't say to our investigators to our prosecution,
[4:04:13] no, sorry, we're maxed out on what was allocated for funding.
[4:04:18] We can't provide that service.
[4:04:19] We continue to provide that service without an additional cost to the county.
[4:04:24] And this funding strengthens our capacity to serve the community.
[4:04:30] Thank you.
[4:04:31] Yes.
[4:04:32] How many minutes do you work?
[4:04:34] I see two people walking up front and I'm going to say something vital.
[4:04:40] Sure, if you have the floor.
[4:04:42] I'm Brian Nealer again, heading to County Sheriff.
[4:04:44] That's why I wanted to thank them for coming in and giving that presentation.
[4:04:48] And I've been doing this work for a lot of years.
[4:04:51] And before we had this great system in place, we had a little bit of a
[4:04:55] hotge podge where we were training our own staff on how to do
[4:05:00] Do these very sensitive interviews with young people and sensitive topics? And it's very expensive training. It's expensive to get the training, to maintain it, and then to try to keep a person for a long enough period of time to do those specific interviews without them getting promoted and moving on is very difficult. So the $10,000 is a very small investment for what we get out of it. Our partnership is great, longstanding.
[4:05:29] And also, they provide other services that they didn't even talk about today.
[4:05:32] When they come in and testify and they testify on all of these cases for the prosecution,
[4:05:37] they don't charge pending to county any additional dollars for that.
[4:05:40] So if you do the math on roughly 140 interviews a year, they're charging us about $71 a day,
[4:05:47] I know that if the feds, for example, come in and get an interview, they're paying significantly
[4:05:53] more than that to help offset some of those costs.
[4:05:56] So it's a good partnership, it's a good investment.
[4:05:59] We've definitely, this is one of these things that Commissioner Durr talked about, that it's
[4:06:04] a service outside of what we currently do, and we could not touch providing that valuable service
[4:06:09] for $10,000 a year, so I just wanted to provide that input.
[4:06:13] I think he answered the question.
[4:06:15] He's a quoted thing for a reason.
[4:06:17] I'm listening to you.
[4:06:20] So Brian, I do have a question for you as well.
[4:06:25] So when you're talking about the number of cases and you say pennington county, is that, is that
[4:06:32] excluding rapid city, or is that including rapid city and all the other municipalities?
[4:06:37] That would, it covers rapid city as well because of how these investigations work
[4:06:43] Sheriff, this probably you're laying in front of the mind, but they oversee those investigations for
[4:06:49] it's a BPD. It is the painting county sergeant that oversees the investigation.
[4:06:54] All right. And so are you getting funding from Rapid City as well?
[4:06:59] Rapid City matches that at the 10,000. All right. And then you have Brian getting back two years ago.
[4:07:08] So these cases used to be done primarily with DSS. And I'm assuming that this is a better service.
[4:07:17] The SDSS is still involved in the process, but they don't do the interviews.
[4:07:21] And more inclusive service, I would say.
[4:07:24] All right.
[4:07:24] If I can speak just a little to that.
[4:07:27] DSS primarily gets involved if it's a parent guardian or caretaker.
[4:07:32] That's when DSS will get involved.
[4:07:34] So they are still one of our partners.
[4:07:36] They are one of our investigating agencies that can do something with that information.
[4:07:40] but the number of our referrals is much higher from our painting County Law Enforcement Partners than it is from DSS.
[4:07:49] All right, so I got a question that segues off that.
[4:07:53] The referral comes from the Sheriff's Department to you for a forensic or whatever.
[4:07:58] So for you.
[4:07:59] Yep, we only take referrals for a case from law enforcement or from DSS or from the State of Trans Office.
[4:08:07] They can request an interview as well.
[4:08:09] And I'm curious of what are you, not that this is relevant to anything, but I'm just more curious
[4:08:15] of myself.
[4:08:16] Personally, what is your potential to allow you to do these, I mean, I see it, these fronts
[4:08:21] have got it to be very, very, I mean, I'm saddening to me, but I can't imagine to you, but
[4:08:30] how do you prepare to do one of these, what do you, what did you do to get to this point?
[4:08:35] I have worked with kids for me, my entire professional career, so I worked with Vulnerable Youth
[4:08:41] for a very long time.
[4:08:42] I would say that everyone's track within my office has been much different and but how
[4:08:48] we've got there is we all started with the Human Services degree and we found ourselves in
[4:08:53] roles with a high turnover rate and we looked and did some reflection and said how are we
[4:08:58] going to be a part of the solution instead of a part of the problem and that's how we ended
[4:09:03] up at the Child Advocacy Center is looking at that holistic approach that we're there for
[4:09:09] that child they're most vulnerable. We also have to take care of that family and their needs
[4:09:13] so that we don't continue to have children victims that will to be adult victims who then
[4:09:20] continue that cycle of having children and didn't break that cycle. So being there to provide those
[4:09:25] resources and services and sometimes it's just being that year for them to say you can do this
[4:09:31] and being able to do that.
[4:09:33] And just seeing the judge coming out and taking here
[4:09:37] for our second review for unbiased position on.
[4:09:42] Yeah, fast-shining, unbiased.
[4:09:45] It's not leading in suggestive.
[4:09:47] It's really just about the child getting to tell their story
[4:09:50] in the time that they want.
[4:09:51] We never force a child to talk if they're not ready.
[4:09:55] We're then going to come back to the table
[4:09:56] with our multidisciplinary team and say,
[4:09:58] Okay, we can't get to that in this-
[4:10:00] We need to make sure that the mental health is taking care of first, and our partners are so good about saying, okay, you let us know, you get that connected and then we can meet back.
[4:10:11] Wow,
[4:10:14] Mr. Chair.
[4:10:15] Yes, Commissioner.
[4:10:15] I would like to question.
[4:10:16] How do you integrate with other agencies like Lutheran and social services,
[4:10:21] or have a city-school district?
[4:10:23] I'm assuming they give you referrals or doesn't go to the state's attorney.
[4:10:30] So I guess you're clients.
[4:10:31] How do they be clients?
[4:10:34] Learn of us.
[4:10:35] So part of that prevention education is me going out providing education
[4:10:39] on recognizing the signs and symptoms
[4:10:42] of abuse and how the handle of disclosure of a child comes to you and then what that reporting
[4:10:47] process looks like. So providing that education, they receive a report, move through
[4:10:52] social services, many of them are mandated reporters, meaning that they have to, they have to,
[4:10:58] they have to codify law, that they have to report that abuse once they report it to law enforcement
[4:11:03] or CPS or prosecution, then we get involved our partners reach out to us. We staff the case
[4:11:09] we go from there. Yeah, I just wondered what the process was. Well, it's for SPI, we
[4:11:14] provide interviews for SPI, too, it's the same kind of process. So, where's your
[4:11:18] physical location then? We are currently at the old NAU building off of Highway 16
[4:11:26] over on your right hand side. Peace on Rapid City, then. Rockerville is our residential
[4:11:31] facility, we're before that. Yep, and you all are welcome any time to come see our
[4:11:36] facility, I would be happy to give you a tour.
[4:11:39] I
[4:11:41] don't know what to say, but yeah, that's a lot, I'd be like, I do, I do appreciate your
[4:11:49] passion.
[4:11:49] How long have you been there?
[4:11:52] I have been there for just over three years.
[4:11:55] Hopefully, I mean, you're there for a lot longer, but you're all Jessica, broyer.
[4:12:01] So what's the burnout rate for a lot of the, you know, we have straight.
[4:12:05] So we do pretty solid I have friends I can agree with that's been there for 15 years
[4:12:14] and that's been there for six or seven and when you're one that's been there going
[4:12:20] she's going on two years that's unheard of in this field.
[4:12:26] My family advocate coordinator has been there over 20 years and she coordinates with our medical
[4:12:31] meeting with our specialized pediatricians. That's unheard of. There's only three accredited child
[4:12:37] advocacy centers in the state of South Dakota. Third, peer-solid child's wife turnover way out
[4:12:45] within two years usually. So the children home side, you should always have your speaks and not only
[4:12:50] you know, your job, you know, this is just too strict. Spend a lot of time out there, yes.
[4:12:56] And I can tell you, Ron is right.
[4:12:58] Your passion shows what you're doing,
[4:13:00] and you'll also know more about it.
[4:13:02] And you'll want to know everything about what you're talking about,
[4:13:05] and you're obviously show that today.
[4:13:07] So that was pretty awesome.
[4:13:08] Thank you.
[4:13:09] Thank you.
[4:13:09] Any more questions for the young lady?
[4:13:12] No, it was great information.
[4:13:13] Thank you.
[4:13:13] Very good.
[4:13:14] Thank you very much for the presentation.
[4:13:17] And we'll move on, Mr. Jordan.
[4:13:19] All right.
[4:13:20] Do we have anyone here from Journey on?
[4:13:22] I don't believe so.
[4:13:23] So they're more than, in terms of...
[4:13:25] Journey on.
[4:13:25] So we'll move to complete health.
[4:13:28] You're in waiting.
[4:13:29] He has patiently.
[4:13:33] Complete health.
[4:13:34] Thank you guys.
[4:13:36] Thank you, sir.
[4:13:37] I don't envy you, guys.
[4:13:39] I haven't to do all this.
[4:13:41] Oh, we learn a lot, man.
[4:13:42] Yeah.
[4:13:43] It's pretty cool on that.
[4:13:44] Since I've got there going, you know.
[4:13:46] I've got my dog from the K&A society.
[4:13:49] My son-in-law works for me as a wheels.
[4:13:52] So I don't think he's the one.
[4:13:54] Yeah, that films is so nice.
[4:13:56] Yeah, so yeah.
[4:13:58] No.
[4:13:58] Snap and picture and circulate it.
[4:14:02] Might as soon turn out on the CEO for complete health.
[4:14:05] Thank you again for taking this time.
[4:14:09] Let me tell you a little bit about completely health and what we do.
[4:14:14] There is.
[4:14:14] We are one of those agencies that traditionally the county has funded as a cost of
[4:14:24] that you have to pay for emergency care, unexpected hospitalizations for the
[4:14:31] indigent. And so back when back in the 90s the county stepped forward
[4:14:36] basically, along with some lucky mucks over at Regional Health, and said, hey,
[4:14:41] let's apply to you become a to open up and stand up a federally qualified health
[4:14:45] center. And so about 1998 is when back that it was called Rapid City Community Health,
[4:14:50] and there was founded with basically one doctor in that and it is grown since then.
[4:14:57] We are what's considered a federally qualified health.
[4:15:00] Here are the only federally qualified health center in the Rapid City, the only one of the Black Hills.
[4:15:04] And what that basically means is that there's a number of things that we have to do to get that qualification.
[4:15:09] We get a federal grant to do that. It's about 3 million bucks that we get.
[4:15:14] Our overall budget is about 13 million bucks. So you can kind of do the math in terms of what that covers.
[4:15:21] In that, with that, we provide care to everybody. We basically provide basic primary care, basic medical care, basic dental care.
[4:15:30] basic mental health care and basic pharmaceutical care for everyone that walks through our
[4:15:35] doors, insured, uninsured, rich poor, but for those of qualified we provide them care
[4:15:40] on a sliding scale and so whether they're insured or unsure, they can apply for our sliding
[4:15:44] scale and therefore they can hopefully get affordable access to basic primary care and
[4:15:50] I've forgotten them from having to use the emergency room, et cetera, et cetera.
[4:15:59] In 758, 100 of our patients are homeless, housing is secure, they're living either at the
[4:16:05] mission or one heart or some other agency or out there on the streets.
[4:16:11] For those individuals that come through our doors, we provide that care for them at no cost
[4:16:15] to them.
[4:16:16] And that's for a thing to see a physician, they can see a counselor, they can see a dentist,
[4:16:22] and addition we will run their labs for them to provide them with pharmaceutical care.
[4:16:29] with the idea, obviously, that we want to get them off the street and get them, obviously,
[4:16:33] transition to a more stable life.
[4:16:37] What we do with our county money, that you guys are gracious to give us for, is we use it
[4:16:41] for our copious assistance program within our pharmacy.
[4:16:44] One of the advantages that we have, as a federally qualified health center, is we can buy
[4:16:50] medications that what's called the 340B price, which is essentially the lowest price available
[4:16:56] And then the basically revenues that we make from insurance companies, we blow off of that,
[4:17:01] is the basically reinvesting and doing what we're doing.
[4:17:06] And so what we end up doing is that for those patients that come through ours are doors that
[4:17:10] are insured that may have some high deductibles, so there may be some beds that are very expensive
[4:17:15] for them, and we can provide them cheaper for those that are uninsured.
[4:17:20] And so rather than having them all just get it at our uninsured price, we basically charge them
[4:17:25] with the uninsured price would be and we subsidized the rest of their copay with the money we
[4:17:30] get from the county which allows us then to submit those to the insurance companies and get
[4:17:35] the revenue for that and then reinvest it. And so basically the money that we get from the county
[4:17:40] we're able to get for every dollar you guys give us we can basically turn that into about three or four
[4:17:45] dollars worth of revenue which allows us to obviously do and continue our mission.
[4:17:50] The other big thing is that that base grant that we get from the federal government that
[4:17:55] three million bucks, that's been unchanged since 2010 and so we have had to, doesn't matter
[4:18:02] how many unnecessary patients we see or what we do, they basically give us that amount
[4:18:06] of money and we have to basically figure out how we are going to do or continue our mission.
[4:18:12] We've been very successful.
[4:18:13] I think over the last number of years, through I think one of the things is unique sort
[4:18:17] partnership that we have at the county, that allows us to extend, basically, our funds.
[4:18:25] It's a challenging year for us, Commissioner Roskinette, can tell you that it's been a very
[4:18:29] challenging year for us.
[4:18:31] We're anticipating it.
[4:18:32] We'll be another challenging year with some of the changes.
[4:18:34] We're anticipating some cuts, obviously, for Medicaid, the work requirement going into
[4:18:38] place will dramatically reduce in terms of the number of patients that we have.
[4:18:42] Since Medicaid expansion, we've seen roughly about 41 percent, 41 percent of our patients that we see are covered by Medicaid.
[4:18:53] The vast majority of those obviously are going to be pediatric patients that come through our doors.
[4:18:58] But just prior to Medicaid expansion, it was probably about 25 percent of our patients were covered by Medicaid.
[4:19:04] So we've seen an increase in the number of patients that we see that are covered by Medicaid.
[4:19:10] And conversely, we've seen a significant drop of the number of uninsured patients that we have seen that we were probably about 30% prior to Medicaid expansion and we dropped that down to about 16-17%.
[4:19:20] So, we are preparing ourselves for obviously some financial belt tightening.
[4:19:24] In terms of that, because obviously it's a lot easier for us to have somebody paying for care rather than having a uninsured and to figure out how it really makes us meet.
[4:19:33] So over the last year, we've had to look at, we've closed our, we operate three clinics, four clinics that should set.
[4:19:41] We did operate four clinics.
[4:19:42] We have our main clinic, which is over on the, on the, on the north side of town.
[4:19:50] That's where our main clinic is.
[4:19:52] We operate a clinic at the one-heart site, which is obviously seeing a lot of housing insecure folks.
[4:19:58] Let's see if it comes through that.
[4:20:00] We were running a clinic at General Beetle Elementary School, a school-based clinic there. We just closed that one, just for operational to reduce that, to redirect all those patients to our clinic at the main clinic. The way I also do outreach stuff to, quarter-stop, resolution to try to get them involved and get them tied back into care.
[4:20:20] I don't have to tell you that obviously in terms of what we're trying to do is to make sure that we can meet some of those health needs, not only to make sure that all the chronic illnesses are taken care of.
[4:20:29] But to get them tied in so that they have a safe place that they can go so we can take care of some of their mental health substance use all those sort of things which are crucial when you're dealing with the energy to make sure that they've got a space for that.
[4:20:43] Yeah, so questions.
[4:20:44] Thank you.
[4:20:45] Is it chair?
[4:20:46] Because I can tell you might expand when I was at that last meeting there was a different ways that
[4:20:52] So, please help one of the reduce their overall budget and there was about a over a page of ideas.
[4:21:00] And I don't want that total dollar amount was, but it was pretty aggressive.
[4:21:04] And I know there was some feedback from some of the folks on Zoom and not what not,
[4:21:08] but can you maybe just mention a few of those ideas that were mentioned at that meeting on how you guys plan on reducing your budget,
[4:21:19] help pay a raise for a year or something like that.
[4:21:22] Yeah, we've obviously taken a look at a whole bunch of things which are probably the same
[4:21:25] things that you guys would be looking at in terms of, obviously pay freezes in terms of being able
[4:21:29] to do that. That's a challenge obviously because we live in a competitive market or in terms of
[4:21:32] all that. Once we lose some of that, we've looked at closing some of those outreach clinics like
[4:21:36] our one-heart clinic in terms of can we continue to sustain that if our costs were to go down.
[4:21:42] We've looked at reducing sort of ourcillary sort of support services. We have community health workers
[4:21:48] for instance that assist with folks that are getting them tied into some of the agencies and
[4:21:54] social service sort of stuff and assisting with, you know, basically navigating them through
[4:21:59] the system, we've looked at reducing our patient medication or assistance program in terms of
[4:22:05] some of the stuff that we do in terms of as a lot of drug companies that provide free meds to folks
[4:22:11] that qualify because a lot of paperwork you need to be able to go through to follow that,
[4:22:18] you
[4:22:18] obviously to be able to provide and then really then it gets down to
[4:22:23] reducing some of our additional staff from our care staff and reducing
[4:22:25] the amount of access that we have. So we've got a whole bunch of those
[4:22:29] sort of things that we're looking at turn to kind of a punch list in terms of
[4:22:33] as things change and should our funding reduce how can we cut things you know.
[4:22:39] And we want to pretty lean ship as it is and so we recognize that at this point
[4:22:45] Well, we start to reduce things that we start to cut in the boat, you know, in terms of reducing
[4:22:49] basically the access.
[4:22:51] And so, we hate to do that, but if we need to do that, that's what we'll do.
[4:22:57] I think you mentioned dental services, not a real profitable portion of the income.
[4:23:04] So, yeah, dental services is one of those things your average cost per care and a dental
[4:23:07] visit within our clinic is roughly about six to seven hundred dollars per visit.
[4:23:11] So clearly, those patients that come in on our sliding scale,
[4:23:16] they're only paying $30 for a visit.
[4:23:18] We're having to subsidize that with the rest of our care.
[4:23:20] And so dental services is one of those things
[4:23:23] that is a huge need.
[4:23:26] If you look in terms of the emergency room with the hospitals,
[4:23:28] probably one of the greatest needs,
[4:23:29] where people go into the emergency room that are uninsured.
[4:23:33] They go into the emergency room.
[4:23:34] It's not a whole lot.
[4:23:34] They can do an emergency room,
[4:23:35] except provide your payments.
[4:23:37] So we run a locking clinic within our dental clinic,
[4:23:40] we'll often see patients that have been to the emergency room multiple times and then finally
[4:23:44] give up and come in to see us because there are two things that have happened and then we start
[4:23:48] to obviously integrate them into our care. Any other questions?
[4:23:54] Oh, other questions? Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys.
[4:24:00] Thank you, you're time. I appreciate what you did.
[4:24:06] I was going to say the only thing left is to talk about any
[4:24:12] I think you guys want on the budget, or we can move on with the agenda.
[4:24:16] Does move on with the agenda?
[4:24:18] I'm going to make a motion to go in an executive session for personnel and legal.
[4:24:22] I have a motion from there.
[4:24:25] Second from Hatcock to move into executive session on favor say aye.
[4:24:29] All right.
[4:24:30] Opposed.
[4:24:30] Same sign here.
[4:24:31] None.
[4:24:31] Motion carries.
[4:24:33] Care.
[4:24:33] We're going to go into executive session, bud.
[4:24:35] I'm fine.
[4:24:36] All right.
[4:24:43] Okay, we're up. We're back in going to make a motion to come out of executive session at a motion by adjourn a second by roskinette all in favor say I
[4:24:52] Motion carries
[4:24:53] Motion to adjourn motion adjourn second by roskinette all in favor say I
[4:25:00] All right, bye, we're adjourned.