[0:04] Welcome to Tuesday, September 1st, 2026
meeting. Please silence cell phones,
[0:08] pages, and other electronic
communication devices. Agendas, the
[0:13] speaker request forms are located at the
back of the chamber. So, if you want to
[0:17] speak, um, please fill out a speaker
request form and bring it to the front
[0:21] to Jordan. So, well, all here. So, um,
uh, Commissioner Ross Connect is going
[0:27] to lead us in a moment of silence and
then pledge of allegiance. So,
[0:31] Commissioner Ross Connect, you have the
floor.
[0:51] I aliance to the flag of the United
States of America and to the republic
[0:57] for which it stands. One nation under
God, indivisible with liy and justice
[1:03] for all.
>> Thank you.
[1:07] » Um today we have employee recognition
day. So, we had cookies at the back and
[1:14] uh we welcome all the new employees to
Pennington County. There's a list of
[1:19] these employees somewhere and I I guess
I don't have access to don't need to
[1:23] read them, but thank you and welcome. Um
so, we'll move on to item number five.
[1:29] The board of commissioners using
>> number three, Mr. Chair.
[1:32] » Okay, we need to do what now?
>> Review and approve the agenda.
[1:36] » Okay.
>> Yep.
[1:39] » I'll make a motion to approve.
>> Second. We have a motion and a second.
[1:43] All from a motion from Drew Dur and
second from Drews. All in favor say I.
[1:47] » I.
>> Motion carries. Thank you. Okay.
[1:53] And then we'll move on to the consent
agenda as presented. Is that correct?
[1:56] 5A.
>> Correct.
[1:59] » Approval of the adopt a highway
application for a portion of 143rd
[2:02] Avenue by Central High School Structured
Academics.
[2:09] Do we have a motion on that item? Do we
have a speaker on that item?
[2:12] » It's on consent.
>> It's on consent. All these are all
[2:15] consent. So these are all I'm sorry.
>> Okay. So we'll move on to item six.
[2:19] Public comment for
>> Mr. Chair.
[2:22] » Need to make a I'm going to make a
motion to approve the consent calendar.
[2:26] » I'll second that.
>> Man, I'm getting confused here. Okay. So
[2:29] a motion from Dur and second from Ross
Connect to approve the consent calendar.
[2:33] All in favor say I.
>> I. Motion carries. Thank you guys.
[2:36] Keeping me straight there. Now we'll
move on to item six. Public comment per
[2:40] SDCL1251.
There's a threeminut time limit per
[2:44] person. The speaker request form is
required. No commission action will be
[2:48] taken during this section. Speakers
under this section will be recorded. You
[2:51] will have three minutes and so try to
keep it to the three minutes. I got
[2:56] three of them. So we'll just start with
uh Miss Cook. Cindy, you are up public
[3:00] comment.
[3:05] You have
>> morning commissioners. Uh Cindy Cook,
[3:08] Rapid City,
and I had a question for you all today.
[3:13] Who who thinks the 2020 election was
stolen?
[3:19] Show of hands. Anybody?
interesting because I had a conversation
[3:25] with with uh Commissioner Durr after the
July 7th commission meeting and you
[3:31] stated that it was definitely stolen and
that you also questioned the Los Angeles
[3:37] elections and the Sou Falls elections,
all the elections. We can't have it both
[3:42] ways. Here we are six years later using
the same electronics predetermining our
[3:49] elections.
Don't you think we should be worried
[3:53] about the ESNS claims in teenytiny print
that they have proprietary software with
[4:00] their trade secrets? Think about this
for a second. Trade secrets in our
[4:06] elections.
It appears that every election for the
[4:11] last two decades have been
predetermined.
[4:15] South Dakota Canvasing wrote a Substack
pointing out who's really in charge
[4:20] here. I emailed all of you this. Did Did
you all get it? My email South Dakota
[4:28] canvasing.
>> If you just emailed it recently, I'll
[4:31] speak for the commission and do we A lot
of us are just getting our email back
[4:35] up. So,
>> well, I should have brought you a copy,
[4:39] but that doesn't seem to do any good
either.
[4:44] In it, it says the SDPA, the public
assurance alliance, the company that
[4:49] carries the shity bonds on the public
officials.
[4:54] They have a conflict problem and so do
you. There's Chris Jacobson who's on the
[4:59] board of the SPAA and two other boards.
South Dakota Association of County
[5:05] Commissioners, South Dakota Association
of of Officials.
[5:11] Chris has lobbied against every single
election integrity bill of the people
[5:17] since 2022.
I'm sure you've received her messages
[5:21] urging all of you to resist this
nonsense of handc counting.
[5:27] This is shocking
because you all pretend to act as though
[5:32] you might handcount in the governor's
race when you never intended to. Another
[5:38] shocking fact is you had prepaid ESNs
for another election without mentioning
[5:44] this to all the people from Pennington
County that rounded up 221 voters to
[5:50] work in the precinct for the hand
counting of the governor's race. You
[5:56] never intended to have this happen.
You're on the wrong side. Commissioners,
[6:04] are you afraid of not getting reelected?
Do you want status quo?
[6:13] » Thank you. Uh we move on to uh David
[6:21] » Neerson or
public com.
[6:26] » Oh, he's on an ordinance. So, I'm sorry,
David, you're you're on a specific
[6:30] ordinance. So, ordinance.
>> Yeah, but it is a public comment. So,
[6:34] he's on
>> No, this is a different speaker.
[6:38] » Yeah,
>> this is a speaker request form from and
[6:40] I can't read the last name.
>> David. Yeah, I can't read it either. N.
[6:43] Are you here? David.
>> Oh, David, what's going on, man? Come on
[6:47] up.
>> You're you're you're next, buddy. Public
[6:51] comment.
I didn't even recognize you at first.
[6:55] Sorry.
>> David Ne, Ordinance 796.
[6:58] I retired on April 1st, 2026. I
currently rent but want to be a
[7:02] homeowner again. My total social
security benefit is $1,910
[7:08] monthly. After bills, the estimated
remaining balance is $320 monthly. All
[7:15] my exact numbers are inhand documented.
From that $320 comes my out-ofpockets,
[7:22] my gas, food, cleaning supplies,
personal hygiene, clothing, vehicle
[7:26] maintenance, and planning for the
unexpected, such as May 13, 2024,
[7:31] hearing aids, $6,500.
August 2024, unplanned dental and
[7:37] medical emergencies, $4,337.
April 2026, four new tires, $2,410.50.
[7:47] All of those get paid. All those bills
get paid before me. And dead last is me,
[7:52] David. When life goes down the rabbit
hole, my quality of life expenses are
[7:57] the first to evaporate. This is why I
work two days a week for extra money. At
[8:02] my core, I am entrenched against the
idea of one man's debt being shifted to
[8:06] another man, whether he be a tourist, a
retiree, a billionaire, or a 10-year-old
[8:12] boy.
>> [snorts]
[8:13] » Vote buying 796 is an arrogant
ordinance. It forcefully shifts
[8:18] homeowners debt onto me. It also
forcefully shifts homeowner
[8:22] responsibility and accountability onto
me as well. And I am mad as hell about
[8:27] that.
[8:31] » Thanks, sir. Um, Marilyn Redki.
Marilyn, you have the floor.
[8:40] Did I? Okay. I'm here because Can you
hear me? I'm so short. [laughter] Okay.
[8:49] I am here because I have a situation
with a drainage problem. Uh in visiting
[8:54] with the new owner of the egg store, the
feed store on Highway 44. I just
[8:59] happened to stop in there and we were
visiting and he told me that a county
[9:05] commissioner was in and the county
commissioner said that he thought the
[9:11] the road end of the feed store has got
it's it's rough. It's gravel and then
[9:16] there's a a dip where there's a drainage
drain.
[9:22] The county commissioner said he thought
he could get the feed store property
[9:26] fixed with extra money from a county
fund. Now, I talked I called that county
[9:32] commissioner and he was very gracious
and he called me back and I told him my
[9:36] concerns that that ditch is there
because it keeps my property from being
[9:42] flooded.
And I explained that I had lived there
[9:46] since 1971 and the Hawthorne ditch is no
longer there. So, that's a blessing.
[9:51] But, we still get the water runoff
because we're lower and the ditch needs
[9:56] to be remained open as far as I'm
concerned so it doesn't flood our
[10:00] property. And I explained that to him
and he said, "Point taken."
[10:08] Now, I don't know what that means, so
that's why I'm here. Um he did I told
[10:13] him that I was told that there was money
available and he said there might be
[10:20] money available
from the city from blood money left
[10:26] over. I don't know what all that means
and maybe you don't either but that's
[10:31] how that got brought up to the feed
store that he thought he could get money
[10:35] to fix their road. Now my concern is
the situation is the drainage field. If
[10:44] it gets it's right now it's just a small
drainage area cuz every new owner fills
[10:49] it in a little more since I've been
there since 71. My kids used to play in
[10:54] that water. So there was a ditch that
ran through there. Whether it's on the
[10:57] plot or the plat I do not know. But it
has been flooded. We've had at times
[11:06] two sump pumps running on our property.
So, it's a real concern to me to have
[11:12] that. Uh
I don't know. I recommend that if they
[11:19] want to fill this in that it should be
done with a pipe running through or a
[11:24] small culvert, something so that the
water doesn't back up on my property. I
[11:31] have no problem with the owners. It's
just the water problem is my concern.
[11:37] And I recommend that if it's going to be
filled in to fill it in and do it
[11:41] correctly. Put a pipe in there. Put a
culvert in there. Something so that it's
[11:47] it's done correctly. This is a natural
drainage area through there. And this is
[11:52] a flood area. So that's my concern. Uh,
how can I be assured
[12:00] that the drainage
problem will be addressed by you guys?
[12:06] » Oh, Maryland. Um, are you in the city or
in the county? Right there.
[12:09] » I can't hear.
>> Are are you in the city or the county?
[12:12] » I'm right on Highway 44 by the uh the
racetrack.
[12:17] » Okay.
>> Right next year before the racetrack and
[12:19] you're before. Yeah. Um I think uh
Britney's not here. I was going to have
[12:24] you get with
even there's Joe. Joe just came in. If
[12:28] you [clears throat] could get with him,
>> he's he's at the back door. If you could
[12:31] get with Joe back there, he can help you
understand a little bit more about those
[12:35] roads and everything back there. He's
right behind you. Joe,
[12:39] » is there a way you could get with
Marilyn and and help her figure out her
[12:43] situation, please?
>> I have been to the PL planning and
[12:46] zoning several times and Cody and David
have been extremely helpful.
[12:52] » Okay. Uh,
but they don't know where they stand
[12:56] either as far as
the computer.
[12:59] » We'll help you figure it out
>> and nobody can check anything because
[13:03] the computers are down,
>> right?
[13:06] » We're getting we're getting better at
that, Marilyn. We're getting that stuff
[13:08] up and going. So, we'll help you. Joe
will help you a little bit, too. So,
[13:11] » all right. Thank you for Thank you so
much for your time.
[13:13] » That's really about all we can tell you
right now. So,
[13:16] » um,
>> it looks like she wants to speak. Okay,
[13:21] just give her the stand.
>> Yeah, Mr. Chair. Yes,
[13:24] » I'm going to follow up if I can on the
last one.
[13:27] » So, [clears throat] there's about 20% of
what was said that's actually what's
[13:31] been stated. So, I had the discussion
when I was at the feed store in the
[13:35] valley and he was talking. I was looking
at the drainage ditch out there and so
[13:41] he came over and said, "What are you
looking at?" and it was while I was
[13:44] getting feed and I said the county is
looking at drainage in the valley and
[13:47] I'm just looking at how this is utilized
and he said that he would like to you
[13:54] know look at that. There was no
discussion about using county funds or
[13:58] doing anything to fix a road. There was
no discussion about a road. Uh I did
[14:03] have a conversation with this individual
and she had reached out to planning and
[14:08] I said no we're not doing anything with
it. There was no discussion about city
[14:11] funds of any kind, any county funds. It
was a conversation with the owner of the
[14:16] feed facility that uh the county was
looking at the drainage in the valley
[14:21] and how it's impacted and that we were
doing away with our drainage uh
[14:26] relationship with the city and that's
the point of the conversation.
[14:30] » Okay, perfect. Thanks. And I know that
that Mariah Cranny, Mariah,
[14:37] you have the floor. Good morning,
commissioners.
[14:40] » Good morning.
>> My name is Mariah Cranny.
[14:45] I'm a civil rights advocate and a
registered CNA in Pennington County.
[14:50] Mother of four.
I reported seven months ago that 19
[14:56] months ago my children were illegally
removed from me by this county and I
[15:01] haven't heard anything back from you.
I appear today to place you on formal
[15:06] notice of South Dakota law and federal
law that govern this board's power to
[15:10] appropriate and continue paying public
money to county offices, departments,
[15:15] contractors, and other entities under
your fiscal control. You have now had
[15:20] notice for 7 months that crimes are
alleged to have been committed by public
[15:23] servants whom this county employs and
whom this board pays. That notice is not
[15:29] a rumor. It is part of the public record
of this county. Continuing to fund the
[15:34] same offices and the same people after
that notice without investigation,
[15:39] referral, or a recorded finding that the
claims are unfounded. It is not a
[15:43] ministerial act. It is a policy choice
for which you may be held to account.
[15:48] South Dakota law is not silent.
SDCL7-8-20
[15:53] requires this board to superintend the
fiscal concerns of the county and to
[15:57] audit accounts of officers who collect
or spend county money. SDCL7-21-14
[16:03] imposes a trust when you adopt a budget.
Appropriations are not a blank check.
[16:08] SDCL 21-25 through 21-27 make debts and
payments beyond lawful appropriation
[16:15] void and can place personal liability on
officers whom create or pay them.
[16:20] SDCL36-1
makes willful failure to perform an
[16:24] official duty a class 2 misdemeanor.
SDCL22-308-46
[16:30] makes a public officials knowing misuse
of entrusted public funds for that
[16:34] official's financial benefit theft.
SDCL716-14
[16:40] directs the state's attorney,
Lara Wretzel, upon a petition of 15
[16:47] resident taxpayers and reasonable cause
to sue commissioners for malfeasants,
[16:51] misappropriation, or other misconduct.
SDCL 3-17-6
[16:57] authorizes removal of local officers for
misconduct, malfeasants, nonfeasants, or
[17:02] crimes in office. Federal law is not
silent. Officials acting under color of
[17:07] law who willfully deprive persons of
their rights secured by the constitution
[17:11] or federal law may be prosecuted under
18 USC 242. Two or more persons who
[17:17] conspire to injure or intimidate a
person in the free exercise of those
[17:21] rights may be prosecuted under 18 USC
241. Honest services fraud under 18 USC
[17:27] 13411343
and 1346 reaches schemes to deprive the
[17:32] public of the honest services of public
officials. None of those statutes
[17:36] require you to convict anyone today.
They do require you that you not treat
[17:41] documented notice as something that you
can ignore while you keep signing the
[17:44] warrants. You pay these public servants.
You sit as the fiscal board of this
[17:49] county after 7 months of notice silences
itself a decision. I ask this board on
[17:54] the record an independent review of the
notices already given. Thank you for
[17:58] your time.
>> Thank you. And Mariah, you done there?
[18:03] This is because this is the second time
you've come up here with the same
[18:06] information and we've not been served by
any public uh you know. So
[18:13] » I'm sorry what
>> I'm not here to argue with you. You had
[18:15] your time. I'm just saying you can't
this is the second second meeting that
[18:19] you've come here with the same
information. If you have an issue with
[18:22] the state's attorney or with us then you
may want to go to the attorney general
[18:26] and file
>> the attorney general is also complicit
[18:29] in these crimes.
>> Perfect. That's what I
[18:31] » the governor, the state's attorney,
CASA, who else?
[18:36] » So, everybody,
>> attorney general, county commissioners,
[18:40] » sheriff Brian Mueller says that child
trafficking is just part of the system.
[18:45] » So, everyone in this county slashstate
slash
[18:49] » Okay, so everybody's against you, right?
So,
[18:51] » I'm not saying against me. I'm saying
against loving parents who love their
[18:54] children and want them protected.
They're not being protected. They're
[18:57] being harmed. And we can't even call and
ask if they're okay.
[19:01] » Yeah, definitely. You go. Maybe you need
to get a lawyer or something or whatever
[19:04] you need to do, but coming here to just
chew us out.
[19:07] » Pay money into the system that's that's
harming us.
[19:11] » All right. You have a good day. Your
time's up. So,
[19:17] okay. That anybody else want public
comment?
[19:22] Nope. Okay. We will formally close
public comment and move on.
[19:28] to item seven. Typically, we don't
respond at public comment, but when we
[19:33] continue to get the same information and
go nowhere, at some point we got to say,
[19:37] you know, let's move on. So, item seven
from the Rapid City Police Department,
[19:45] letter of support, model cities
initiative app, Dave Kinzer. Dave, you
[19:50] have the floor, sir. Perfect. Uh,
appreciate you having me here,
[19:53] everybody. Um, so this was a uh pretty
big grant that came out. Um, we had
[19:59] noticed in uh earlier this summer and
then working through it and then uh the
[20:04] hack happened and kind of had to redo a
bunch of stuff there as I'm sure
[20:08] everybody in the room was affected by
that. Um, so this is a very large grant.
[20:14] Um, I don't know the likelihood that we
would we are we would be competitive for
[20:19] it or not because background lobbying
and whatnot, but if we did get this
[20:23] grant, I think it would fix a lot of
strategic initiatives down the road that
[20:28] we've got planned or need to address and
I can go through each one of those. Um,
[20:34] but I' I'd like to turn it over to what
questions you guys have for me.
[20:39] » Yes, Commissioner Hadcock, do you have
the floor?
[20:41] » I don't have any questions, Dave. I just
appreciate that you're moving this
[20:44] forward. It's a regional public safety
training initiative in the bottom line.
[20:50] Um, if we can get any kind of extra
training for our officers or uh public
[20:55] safety uh officials, I think it's always
a positive. So, what you're doing, Dave,
[20:59] and you've been in there for a while,
um, let's get her done and let's move
[21:04] forward and, um, make sure that our, um,
people, our first responders are taken
[21:11] care of. So, um, thank you for calling
me. I appreciate that too, Dave, and
[21:16] just visiting about what you're doing
and how long you've done it. And like I
[21:20] said, you've been in here for a while.
So, when you're putting something
[21:23] forward, um, I appreciate what you're
doing because again, the the the main
[21:28] issue I like is re regional public
safety training, which has a lot to do
[21:32] with um, all um, elected or not elected
um, first responders. So, thank you,
[21:37] Dave, for what you do.
>> Thanks. And um one clarification, I'm
[21:41] not asking for your um approval to
accept the award um because there's like
[21:46] three uh three processes for this grant.
This first it's kind of like a science
[21:51] fair. You go to the local one, submit it
to an email, and then they approve you
[21:54] and then you have to do a presentation
and then there's another round.
[21:58] » Um so I'm just asking for your
permission to go to this first round.
[22:02] And as we progress through the rounds,
you guys will be updated and any formal
[22:08] agreements or anything will be given to
you for approval and acceptance and
[22:13] contracts and so forward. And how it's
structured um it it would go through the
[22:19] city and uh Pennington County would be a
subawwardee. So we would have the
[22:23] responsibility for the financial and the
reporting obligations, all the not fun
[22:28] stuff with grants. to what you're asking
is and that's what I'm saying is that I
[22:33] support the letter of support. I should
say it like that. Okay. Thank you,
[22:36] » Mr. Chair. Commissioner Drew,
>> I move to authorize the chair to sign
[22:40] the letter of support as presented.
>> Second.
[22:43] » Have a motion and a motion from Drew.
Second from Mur. All in favor say I.
[22:47] » I.
>> Motion carries. And thanks Dave for the
[22:49] phone calls and uh this is the process
that starts it. I know that there's
[22:53] challenges with regional officer
training. I've had conversations with
[22:57] our sheriff and with Chief Hedrickk both
saying that this is uh um it's it's a
[23:02] non-matching one too from what I
understand. So we just match it's more
[23:05] like a grant style. So we you can see
that we'll support it and we'll we'll
[23:10] we'll have our commission manager draft
a letter of support. So
[23:14] » I I've got to have it in today. So I
drafted one.
[23:17] » You got to have it in. You drafted it
for him. Well, we'll let him read it and
[23:20] and I'm sure it probably makes sense and
we'll get the sir
[23:24] » authorize the chair to sign it. So,
thanks. Item number uh eight,
[23:31] board committee appointments,
air quality board appointment. According
[23:35] to ordinance 12, mun code of the
commissioners appoints one at large
[23:39] voting member to the seven person Rapid
City air quality board for a three-year
[23:43] term. Incumbent Jackie Cross. Yes. Move
to appoint Jackie Crass to the Rapid
[23:48] City Air Quality Board for three-year
term effective 83126.
[23:52] Have
>> a motion from Hackcock.
[23:55] » Second.
>> A second from Ross Connect. Any
[23:57] discussion on the motion? All in favor
say I.
[24:00] » I.
>> Motion carries. Um items from treasure.
[24:04] Update on treasur's office operations.
Missette.
[24:13] » Good morning, Mr. Chair. Commission.
Annette Brandt, Pennington County
[24:16] Treasurer. Uh, updating you here on the
um public side um since the cyber
[24:22] incident. Just letting you know we've
just returned all of our temporary
[24:26] equipment that we were utilizing. So,
we're all um we're all util um we are
[24:31] all now back on our on our computers.
There's still some things that um we've
[24:36] got a list of items that do need to be
updated um or excuse me, not updated,
[24:42] but um worked through, but we're all
able to jump onto another computer. If
[24:46] one thing works on one, we can pull from
another. It's got that list and we're
[24:51] just waiting in line for that. Um we're
getting the info out for the
[24:56] self-service terminal that's now located
at 900 Concourse Drive. Um we are
[25:03] getting back to our normal numbers of
processing counts. Um checking the queue
[25:11] appointments only is what I'm going to
start it off with rather than opening it
[25:15] completely up and we'll continue to do
first come first serve through the
[25:21] public line. It does appear that um
without the staff having to put in all
[25:25] of the additional information for the
return visits for the PE public that we
[25:30] are able to um work through additional
uh transactions or at least get them
[25:35] through the line a little bit faster.
But I would like the queue availability
[25:39] so that if um the person has waited in
line and they have to come back for it
[25:43] that we have an avenue to be able to let
them kind of jump the line which is what
[25:48] the queue allowed us to do. So um
working on that. The phones are still an
[25:52] issue with our department. Um, this past
week we had no calls that were dropping
[25:57] as we were talking to the public. Um,
but static still an issue. Um,
[26:02] voicemails have been turned off now for
incoming phone calls just so that the
[26:06] public knows they used to be able to
leave a voicemail. We do not have the
[26:10] staffing to be able to retrieve those
calls and then call them back again. So,
[26:14] um, calls are being taken as a um, first
come first serve through that. Um let's
[26:22] see and then there was some discussion
earlier um that came from the commission
[26:27] office regarding um balancing in the
treasur's office. So I just want to
[26:31] assure you that um on paper the um the
treasur's office the county is balanced.
[26:39] Um there is no money missing or
anything. It is our office working with
[26:44] the the items that are input into the
Tyler system. So, we balance on paper,
[26:50] but the Tyler system had an additional
amount. This morning, it came to light.
[26:55] We've been digging for this for a long
time, but uh this morning it came to
[27:00] light that it's on a 2024
error that was in the real estate
[27:06] program on the aortioning side that
called an NSF charge a real estate. So,
[27:13] we're working through that with the
auditor's office to find out how we can
[27:16] correct that. It's not money that was
collected. It wasn't even anything that
[27:20] should have been in there. But those are
the things that we deal with um with not
[27:25] just the Tyler system, but our old real
estate system. So, some days I get
[27:29] pretty frustrated with the new Tyler
system, but at the same time, our uh um
[27:34] moving forward with it. It um tells me
that we'll have um better situations
[27:41] coming up with um their real estate side
versus the one that's pieced together.
[27:46] things like this come up um often. So,
and with that, I'll stand by for
[27:52] questions.
>> Mr. Chair.
[27:54] » Yep. Commissioner Ross.
>> So, now that can you give the commission
[27:57] an update on the two kiosk, the ones
placed out here now and it's working and
[28:03] the other one is scheduled to go be
placed this month.
[28:07] » Uh that is what I've been told in
September that they do have it
[28:11] scheduled. um the owner of that property
is going to contact you and I you or I
[28:16] um the minute that they um contact him
for the actual placement. They've done
[28:22] site visits already. They have located
the building that it will be in and he
[28:27] had like three different locations that
were really good um
[28:32] uh strong service there that they for
them to choose from. So,
[28:38] » so the location is going to be the Three
Forks Country Store
[28:43] » at the junction of Highway 16 and 385.
>> And Matt picked three locations and the
[28:50] state has agreed to I think all three.
And he told me that sometime this month
[28:55] they they're going to come up there and
they're going to put it there. he's
[28:59] going to lose a little retail space, but
uh when you when folks from Fall River,
[29:05] any county in the state of South Dakota,
they can do their transactions at that
[29:09] convenience store. And his hours are
good enough that they'll be plenty of
[29:15] hours uh [clears throat]
>> for uh folks to get off work. They'll be
[29:20] open. They open at 6. So, I think it's
really going to be a benefit to uh folks
[29:25] that live in that part of Pennington
County.
[29:28] » I agree. And we'll keep you posted on
that. As as with the one for ours, uh
[29:33] the uh 900 concourse, that specific date
got moved several times. Um the original
[29:40] one got juggled around during shipping
and um so they had to fix it before
[29:44] they, you know, it took another 3 days
for them to fix it to get it in. So,
[29:48] we'll just cautiously approach that for
getting that out to the public, but
[29:52] we'll let Cody know that as well. Um, we
were making sure that this one that is
[30:00] located right outside this building, um,
that the scanners were working because
[30:06] it's not just motor vehicle
transactions, it's also driver's
[30:09] license. So, you would scan in your
documents that are needed for there. you
[30:13] scan in documents. If you're uh have a
veteran plate, the $10, $12, I guess it
[30:20] is now, uh veteran renewal, you have to
show your um veteran
[30:25] status. Um that is all working now. And
so I just sent out an email to let the
[30:33] powers that be know that and whenever
they're ready to be 247, then it looks
[30:37] like that equipment is ready for that,
too.
[30:40] Lastly, the last the thing that really
boggles my mind is why can't we get good
[30:44] telephone service? How hard can that be?
I mean, today's technology and you know,
[30:50] you're
>> still dealing with a substandard
[30:55] telephone system in my opinion. I just
>> what it reminds me of is when I was a
[30:59] kid and it would rain for whatever
reason, the moisture would, you know,
[31:04] make that crackling noise, but they tell
me between the two buildings that that's
[31:08] not what it is. But yeah, it is pretty
frustrating to the customers as well.
[31:12] So, and on that line too, I I um I don't
have an update for the customers, but I
[31:18] do know that it's been asked a lot about
the public um internet and so just want
[31:23] to make sure that that's on somebody's
plate eventually that they're going to
[31:26] want that as well. They want that back.
>> Awesome.
[31:31] » Mr. Chair,
>> Commissioner Dur.
[31:32] » Yeah. Ned, when you [clears throat]
talked about the fuzzy line, I went
[31:36] back. You're not talking about a hand
crank telephone, are you? [laughter]
[31:41] » Okay. So, getting back to
>> I'm not as old as I look.
[31:45] » All right. So, getting back to the phone
thing. Uh Annette did have a
[31:49] conversation with me when that they
found out that they first didn't believe
[31:54] the uh voicemail was working and then
came back and there were over a hundred
[32:01] messages. We had 175 messages just on
one of the lines. We did not believe
[32:08] that the voicemails were able to be
retrieved since the shutdown, but when
[32:14] um when [clears throat] I mentioned that
I'd like to know when it's going to be
[32:17] back up again, was told that oh, it has
been. So I went back in and and looked
[32:21] and that was just communication I
believe between the two departments but
[32:25] went in and I believe that was on the
like the 24th or 25th and we had them
[32:30] back there from August 13th. All the
others were lost but from 13 forward. So
[32:35] we're working through those now and just
asked for it to be shut off completely
[32:38] because anytime the phone goes down it
seems that we have issues with that as
[32:42] well. That's not great customer service
either because the people are expecting
[32:47] a phone call back and we're not even
getting the voice messages to return
[32:50] them in some cases. So, and nor do we
have the manpower to retrieve them and
[32:54] then re, you know, they're coming in as
fast as we can answer them. So,
[32:59] » and [clears throat] when someone calls
in, do we still have kind of that system
[33:05] with a certain amount of phone lines and
then you're number one in the queue,
[33:09] your number two in the queue, etc. Is
that still functioning or is it just
[33:12] ringing direct?
>> Right now I believe it's just ringing
[33:16] directly. Um and I have some of the
faster processors on the phone. We've
[33:22] moved them to the back to get through
the phone lines a little bit faster and
[33:26] they're all answering them as you know
as they're coming in. no matter what it
[33:30] is, they're signed on to all of them
where before um we had the newer c or
[33:37] the newer staff were taking in the like
the renewal line so that they could
[33:42] learn how to do that. Now we're training
them right at the front line as
[33:46] requested. So
>> all right and I'm just going to echo,
[33:49] you know, what Commissioner Roskin said,
the phone system here, you know, I'm
[33:54] into my second year on the commission.
It's been an issue from day one. And I'm
[33:59] not sure what the answer is, but I think
uh [clears throat]
[34:02] not having somebody sit on hold and then
get into the queuing system and some of
[34:07] them have been on hold for almost an
hour and then just get disconnected from
[34:12] our phone system and just that
communication going back and forth. And
[34:16] so, um, I think anyway, in my mind, it's
just better to pick up the phone and
[34:22] answer the phone and not try to utilize
the technology we have, which apparently
[34:26] isn't working.
>> Mr. Chair,
[34:30] » Commissioner Ros, sir,
>> I don't think it's just
[34:34] uh your office. I've called other
offices and I still get that rattly,
[34:39] crackly
[34:43] noise on the phone. So, I I don't know.
just be nice if we could just have good
[34:48] phone service.
>> Mr. Chair.
[34:51] » Yes, Commissioner Drew.
>> So, Net, [clears throat] I'm interested
[34:53] in the lines. Um, I was here about
midday yesterday and I counted only a
[35:00] total of 16 people that were in line.
Uh, has that line shrunk to that degree
[35:06] at this point in time or are we looking
still at fairly long lines?
[35:12] » Mr. chair. Well, I'm I'm glad that you
are paying attention to the lines. I get
[35:17] texts almost weekly um telling me how
many windows I have open. I know how
[35:22] many windows that I do have open. We
adjust based on how many people come in
[35:27] on a daily basis. So now I don't have
the Q system to find out what the you
[35:32] know what the volume of people are
coming through there but I do believe
[35:36] that we are shaving off time by not
having to input their we we definitely
[35:42] we changed our um reception windows the
two reception windows that were helping
[35:47] people to verify what they had and get
them signed into the queue and get them
[35:51] in the right line and so forth. Those
are now processing windows. So, they're
[35:56] doing um all of the faster transactions.
We're pulling them out of the the mix um
[36:02] with the other lines and um and we do
have the newer staff that are at the
[36:08] front windows as well. So, I don't have
an answer for you for that because the
[36:12] minute I say that, yeah, the lines are
getting shorter, they're going to get
[36:15] longer. So, it just depends. I've taken
pictures several days um several days in
[36:20] the last um two weeks where there hasn't
been anybody other than the people that
[36:25] are at the windows that are line that
are in line. So again, when it rains it
[36:29] pours, you don't know when they're
coming in. So
[36:32] » okay, thank you.
>> Yes, you're welcome.
[36:34] » Right. Okay. I can tell you I'm the one
that's been texting you because I
[36:39] thought our plan was to have 12 open
windows all the time. So that's cuz
[36:43] there is times when I come out there and
there's five or six windows and there's
[36:48] 50 60 people waiting. So that's why I
text you that my only my only interest
[36:52] is getting people through the line
timely in a manner that I think is
[36:56] achievable and that's with a 30 minute
wait time. So um
[37:00] » Mr. Chair, you are not the only one. So
I just want to make that clear that I am
[37:04] well aware of what's out there and if I
have to pull people off for for training
[37:09] for something else, we're doing it. But
we that is our goal is to to get as many
[37:14] as we can.
>> I've had I've had conversations with the
[37:17] IT department on the phones and it's not
been a priority because there's
[37:21] everybody has a priority right now. What
what my understanding is the
[37:24] interference that we're getting from all
the server ability, but that doesn't it
[37:30] should still shouldn't happen. So, we're
going to continue looking into it and
[37:33] try to fit it into that priority window
of why because since we've had this
[37:37] phone system, it's not worked correctly
or properly at all. So there's there's
[37:41] no and but or nosers about that. It
doesn't work properly if you getting
[37:47] disconnected or or but one of the
comments was made about the amount of
[37:51] volume that comes in that gets put into
the there's only so much volume that
[37:55] that comes in on the phone lines and
then it overwhelms the rest of the phone
[37:58] lines. So we'll be looking into that
too. So
[38:00] » Okay. I appreciate that.
>> Commissioner Rosk,
[38:03] » so we can kind of predict uh busy days.
Now, didn't you tell me, Annette, that
[38:10] the last day of the month is normally
just crazy?
[38:13] » The last week of the month is normally
just crazy.
[38:15] » People are trying.
>> That's a fact.
[38:17] » Get everything done before the next
month. So,
[38:21] » Right. Right.
>> I I just had one other comment. Our our
[38:25] machines 24/7 now, right? Because that
was part of the deal we had to do. Or is
[38:28] it?
>> Not yet. Not yet because we were making
[38:31] sure that everything um was up and
operational. I just sent that email to
[38:35] let them know today and by them I mean
it that hand that handles the door and
[38:40] also Cody Wiseman so that he can put
that out to the um public. I do want to
[38:44] just add one more thing too that um just
to make sure that the other departments
[38:48] are aware too that callers coming to the
treasur's office no longer have the
[38:53] ability to leave a voice message. The
longest that they will remain on hold
[38:57] waiting for one of our staff to answer
is 10 minutes. We're not going to keep
[39:01] them on hold for 50 minutes and then and
then have it drop or have them leave a
[39:05] voice message. Those are turned off. So,
um if they if people are calling from
[39:10] your departments, you um their message
that they're given is just to please try
[39:14] again that all of our um staff are
assisting others at this time. So,
[39:21] » okay. Thank you. Any other questions?
Seeing none. Thank you, Miss Annette.
[39:27] » Thank you.
>> Looks like Mr. Davis is up next. items
[39:30] from buildings and grounds. Highway
warming shed wind damage repair bid
[39:35] award.
>> Mr. Davis, you have the floor, sir.
[39:39] » Yeah. Good morning, commissioners. Davis
Purscell, director of buildings and
[39:42] grounds. Um, so this item was brought to
you just a few weeks back to advertise
[39:47] and bid and now we're looking for a bid
award. Um, as a reminder, uh, the
[39:52] building that we're looking at did, uh,
occur some or incur some structural
[39:56] damage in 2025 in that December wind
event. So, what we're looking at doing
[40:01] is, uh, basically stiffening of the
whole building, some roof and truss,
[40:05] bracing repairs, roof pllin repairs, and
some other items. Uh, what we also did
[40:10] too is we included some alternates into
this project. Um because there's going
[40:14] to be a contractor mobilized, we can
tackle some other things that we noticed
[40:18] uh that needed to be done, which is the
replacement of of their man doors, um
[40:23] replacement of existing windows, um
installation of OSB on the east and west
[40:28] walls, and then some more blown in
insulation in the attic. So, uh the base
[40:34] bid, the low base bid was actually uh
done by Karen Builders. Uh, but when you
[40:40] include all four alternates, seco
construction came out the lowest. Um,
[40:44] and that is the bid award that I'm
looking at. So, I'll stand for any
[40:47] questions.
>> Thank you, commission. Have any
[40:50] questions?
[40:53] » Seeing none, I guess I'll entertain a
motion here.
[40:56] » Yes, commissioner.
>> Toward the warm shed wind damage repair
[40:59] project at SECO construction for the
base bid and alternatives 1 through 4 in
[41:03] the total amount of 316500.
[41:09] Second.
>> Have a motion for Hadcock, second by Ros
[41:11] Connect. All in favor say I. I.
>> I.
[41:14] » Opposed. Same sign. Hearing none. Motion
carries. Item B, request to advertise
[41:19] bids courthouse campus transformer
replacement project.
[41:23] » All right. Yeah. So item B is uh when I
was writing or when I was looking at
[41:27] this memo, one thing I didn't include is
why we were doing this project um or
[41:31] specifically why. So, uh, essentially
Black Hills Energy is doing some planned
[41:36] upgrades, uh, to its downtown electrical
distribution system. Um, those
[41:42] improvements require us, uh, to change
the existing electrical service
[41:46] configurations with our which are the
transformers. Um, long story short,
[41:50] there were there's been a lot of
discussions with Black Hills Energy over
[41:53] the last six months about this project.
Um they so what we what are we doing as
[41:58] part of this project is we're going to
replace those transformers and Black
[42:03] Hills Energy is paying for the new
transformers um and they will own and
[42:08] operate or own and maintain the new
transformers which right now we own them
[42:13] uh which means we're responsible for any
repairs or anything like that to those.
[42:17] Um it's typical for Black Hills Energy
to own these transformers so that's why
[42:21] we are going this route. Uh but again it
is a very complicated project. Um it
[42:27] does involve uh can and will involve
multiple buildings being uh without
[42:33] standard power um for potentially 24
hours. Um so we're coordinating this all
[42:38] the way through into May of 2027 which
is when some of these planned outages
[42:42] will occur. Uh but again um a lot of
this work has been done behind the
[42:46] scenes and and we're now ready to to
advertise and bid this project. So
[42:51] » Mr. Chair.
>> Yes, Commissioner Ros Connect, sir.
[42:54] » So, Davis, are those step down
transformers?
[42:57] » They are for the for the jail public
safety building in the courthouse. Yep.
[43:03] » And three-phase, two-phase.
>> Uh, I think we have two three-phase and
[43:09] one two-phase.
>> Okay.
[43:10] » So,
>> what's the initial voltage going into
[43:13] the
>> Um, I don't I don't have that
[43:15] information with me. I apologize. Um, I
didn't think you'd No. Yeah, that's a
[43:19] great question. anything you'd be asking
that, but it's quite a bit. Our jails
[43:22] are obviously our most demanding uh
within the PSP and the the courthouse
[43:26] follow. So,
>> thank you,
[43:30] » Mr. Chair. I'll go ahead and make the
motion to authorize the building and
[43:34] grounds to advertise and solicit
competitive bids for the Penning County
[43:37] Courthouse campus transformer
replacement project.
[43:40] » Second.
>> We have a motion from Ross Connect,
[43:42] second by Drews. All in favor say I.
>> I oppose. Same sign. Hearing none.
[43:47] Motion Davis.
>> Thank you, Mr. Davis. So, we're going to
[43:49] go to item 11. And I think there's a
request from
[43:54] 11 A,
B, C, and D to be continued until
[44:00] September 17th. So,
>> Mr. Chair, I'd make a motion that we uh
[44:05] go into a board of adjustment.
>> Thank you.
[44:08] » That'll be more appropriate. A motion
from G um Commissioner Drews and and a
[44:13] second from Commissioner Ross Connect to
go into the board of adjustments. All in
[44:16] favor say I.
>> I. I. Motion carries. So now being we're
[44:20] in board of adjustments, we can actually
talk about 11 A, B, C, and D. And
[44:25] there's a request for that to go to be
continued because the uh the engineer
[44:31] can't be here. So um if we move a motion
from Hadcock, second
[44:37] » to continue and a second from Ross
Connect.
[44:39] » Is that for all four of them? AB, B,
>> A, B, C, and D.
[44:42] » Do we have to do them individually?
>> I think so. And also make sure you have
[44:47] which date you're continuing.
>> September 17th.
[44:50] » Okay.
>> So we'll do A. So all in favor say I.
[44:54] » I. Get a motion for B.
>> Go ahead.
[45:00] » Move.
>> We have a motion and a second.
[45:03] » A second. Motion from Drew. Second from
Hancock. All in favor say I.
[45:07] » I.
>> Motion carries. We move that to item uh
[45:10] C.
>> Yep.
[45:15] Move continuation.
>> We have a motion September
[45:18] » Drews and a second from Ross Connect.
All in favor say I. I. I.
[45:21] » Motion carries and we're moving these to
item to September 17th. On item D.
[45:28] Second.
>> Motion from HCO by Ras Connect to move
[45:31] this to September 17th meeting. All in
favor say I.
[45:34] » I.
>> Motion carries. We move on to item E. U.
[45:38] Miss Britney.
>> Good morning commissioners. Britney Han,
[45:40] planning director. Item E is variance
COVA26-000020
[45:45] for Murvin Hilty to exceed the maximum
height requirement in an agriculture
[45:50] district. This property is located at
24460
[45:53] Assurance Lane. Uh the applicant is
requesting to construct a windmill in
[45:58] order to operate his shop building. Um
the requested variances and intended to
[46:05] allow the construction of a distributed
wind energy system to provide power to
[46:10] an agricultural structure. The lot is
capable of reasonable use in compliance
[46:14] with the zoning ordinance and is not
subject to exceptional topographical or
[46:18] site constraints. However, windmills are
structures that are designed to be
[46:22] constructed to a height greater than 35
ft. It is not uncommon to find windmills
[46:27] in agriculture areas within communities
similar to where the applicant resides.
[46:32] Uh this property is agriculturally
agriculturally zoned and there's not
[46:37] typically structures that exceed 35 ft.
But because staff um has found that
[46:42] there's other structures that are
allowed in agriculture districts like
[46:46] spires, um water towers that are allowed
to exceed the height. staff feels that
[46:52] this is a reasonable request and is
recommending approval.
[46:56] » Chair,
>> yes, commissioner move to approve COVA
[46:59] 26-0020
that the windmills turbines are utility
[47:04] related structures that are generally
designed to exceed 35 ft in height in
[47:08] order to effectively utilize available
wind resources and maximize electrical
[47:13] production with two conditions.
>> Second.
[47:16] » A motion from Hadcock, second by Ross
Connect. All in favor say I.
[47:20] » I. I
>> oppose. Same sign. Hearing none. Motion
[47:22] carries.
>> Miss Britney, that's it.
[47:26] » Item 11F is variant COVAA 26-0021
for Zach Van Ginkle to reduce a setback
[47:33] to a property line in a suburban
residential district 1. Uh this property
[47:37] the gentleman would like to construct uh
his single family residence at a setback
[47:42] of 21.6 ft in lie of 25 ft. There are
topographical
[47:48] constraints. Um there is additional
information that was given to the board
[47:53] um prior. If you look at the the
pictures, you can see that there's a
[47:57] significant amount of uh rock outcrop on
this property. Uh the property owner was
[48:04] um beginning to construct his home. He
had our building inspector go out and do
[48:08] his initial site inspection and at that
time our uh building inspector found
[48:14] that the the setback did not meet the
requirements. Uh so the applicant came
[48:19] in and requested uh setback variance. So
staff feels that there are topographical
[48:24] and sighting constraints on this
property. So staff is recommending
[48:28] approval
>> with one condition.
[48:30] » Mr. Chair,
>> go ahead, Ron. I'll go ahead and move to
[48:33] approve COVA26-0021
as a subject property does appear to
[48:39] have topographical constraints that
limits the buildings [snorts]
[48:43] buildable area of the subject property
creating a hardship with one condition.
[48:48] » Second.
>> Second.
[48:49] » Have a motion and a second. All in favor
say I.
[48:52] » I.
>> I. [clears throat] Same sign. Hearing
[48:54] none. Motion carries.
>> Move to uh come out of the board of
[48:57] adjustment.
>> Second. Have a motion from Ross Connect,
[49:00] second by Hadcock to come out of board
of adjustments. All in favor say I.
[49:03] » I.
>> Motion carries. Items from emergency
[49:06] management. Item 12. Dustin, you have
the floor, sir.
[49:11] » Good morning, commission, uh, chair,
members of the commission. Dustin
[49:14] Willlet, Pennington County Emergency
Manager. Item A. Oh, yeah. Item A is the
[49:19] 2027, uh, LMPG subreient agreement. This
is typically on the consent calendar,
[49:24] but because there have been uh inquiries
from from this board about our grant
[49:28] status, uh I just had it moved to our
regular consent agenda. This is uh the
[49:32] grant that we've used for decades. Uh
that has caused some constrnation in the
[49:37] past couple years because of of some
delays in having that award. Uh but so
[49:42] far, all of those those grant funds that
we've been uh approved for have
[49:47] eventually come through. Uh this is for
the 2027 agreement. Again, it's
[49:51] something we've done for for decades.
This covers uh this grant in particular
[49:56] covers about 45% of of my salary in our
EM budget. Uh happy to stand for any
[50:02] questions on that.
>> Commission,
[50:06] » Mr. Chair.
>> Yes.
[50:08] » I'm going to move to approve the 2027
local emergency
[50:12] management performance grant subreionate
agreement and authorize chair to sign
[50:16] the agreement.
>> Second. Have a motion from Dur, second
[50:19] by Drews. All in favor say I.
>> I.
[50:22] » One public comment.
>> Well, I got a public comment. Mike, you
[50:25] want to come up and talk on this one?
[50:32] » Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mike Mueller. Um,
sorry I'm late getting to this item. I
[50:36] just uh it to Jordan. One of the things
I see with state and federal grants is
[50:42] there's a cost of compliance that goes
along with this depending on the budget.
[50:46] If it's just emergency services or if it
goes into the dispatch budget, which is
[50:51] large compared to the emergency services
budget, what's our cost of compliance
[50:54] because of all the rigs that have to be
followed, all the things that have to be
[50:57] reported monthly, the hours tracked,
etc. That's something I'd be interested
[51:02] in knowing how that comes against how
much of grant money we get. I don't know
[51:05] that dollar amount. Couldn't find the
dollar amount, but just a caution to the
[51:08] cost of compliance to get this grant and
comply with it. Thank you.
[51:12] » Thank you. So
>> we already we already proved it. So
[51:16] » that's okay. I don't I don't have that
off the top of my head, but I have
[51:19] worked that up before. Uh uh that that
question has been asked before. Um so
[51:24] anecdotally, I can say that that our
cost of compliance for this grant is is
[51:28] easily justifiable. Uh but I I don't
want to to to spew numbers that might be
[51:33] incorrect from the DAS. So I'll follow
up on that.
[51:36] » Yeah. Okay. We appreciate that. And if
you could get it to Jordan and Jordan
[51:39] can assimilate it to the commission and
whoever else is interested in it.
[51:43] » Um
I hear your wife's a good pickle ball
[51:46] player by the way.
>> What's that?
[51:48] » I heard your wife's a good pickle ball
player.
[51:51] » Uh yes she is. Uh she she puts me to
shame.
[51:54] » Uh 12B.
>> So item B. Uh the outdoor public warning
[51:59] uh siren bid. So this one's a little
more involved or a little more complex.
[52:03] Uh the board offered or authorized me to
go out for RFP. Uh that RFP went out. We
[52:08] had one responsible uh bid on that. Uh
so while my request is that we approve
[52:14] that bid uh and and have those two
sirens uh put in by Spearfish Electric,
[52:21] uh I want to be fully transparent on
where we're at with the costs on those.
[52:26] Uh so these are the two sirens that were
destroyed. uh similar to when Davis uh
[52:30] came up with his items or his first
item. Uh these sirens were destroyed in
[52:35] the 2025 windstorm. And so there's a lot
of different funding mechanisms going on
[52:39] here. Uh there's a portion of it that is
uh insurance uh county insurance. Uh
[52:44] there is a portion that is um uh FEMA uh
uh project costing uh that has some
[52:52] state matching for reimbursement. And
then there's some mitigation which
[52:56] covers FEMA mitigation which covers some
enhancements uh to those siren
[53:00] installations. So there's there's three
different uh uh and then the fourth is
[53:04] is our regularly budgeted uh uh dollars
for that that we have in our 26 budget.
[53:10] Uh so
um
[53:14] my concern and the reason I wanted to
make sure that that uh I spelled this
[53:18] out for the commission is I don't know
the timing of the insurance proceeds,
[53:26] the the regular FEMA and state
reimbursement and the FEMA mitigation
[53:31] reimbursement. And and so my concern is
is if those reimbursements don't come in
[53:38] in this fiscal year and yet the bill
comes in this fiscal year for doing
[53:42] those sirens, uh uh we would not have
the money in our in in our budget to to
[53:48] cover that. Uh the money
[53:53] the money to cover those sirens uh
between FEMA, the state, and insurance
[54:00] is there. I just don't know if it's
going to be in 26 or in 27. Uh so I just
[54:05] wanted to to make sure I was transparent
with the board on the fact that if if we
[54:09] don't get those insurance and
reimbursement costs prior to that bill
[54:13] coming due in 2026, uh it would require
a supplement um uh from general fund to
[54:19] cover that until those monies came in uh
uh to make that hole. There'd be some
[54:23] juggling there. Uh I haven't talked with
Sabrina yet. I don't know if that would
[54:27] be an offset with the operating transfer
in 27 uh or not. Uh there's a couple
[54:32] different ways to make that right when
those revenues come in. Um but I just
[54:37] wanted to to put that up before the
commission uh rather than simply asking
[54:41] for approval on that bid.
>> Thank you all commission.
[54:49] » No, I mean I've read your memo. I get
it. We'll figure out the situation. And
[54:53] I'm going to move to award the siren
replacement project to Spearfish
[54:56] Electric in the amount of 1744797.
>> Second.
[55:01] » A motion from Dur, second by Drews. All
in favor say I.
[55:04] » I.
>> Opposed. Same sign. Hearing none. Motion
[55:07] carries. Items from the highway.
[clears throat]
[55:10] Mr. Joe.
[55:18] » Sir, you have the floor. Joe.
>> Good morning, commission. Joe Miller,
[55:21] Pankton County Highway Department. Uh up
in front of you, item A is rightway and
[55:26] utility cert certificates and letting
authorization for reservoir and Lamb
[55:32] Road. This project was conceptualized in
21 or 22. I couldn't find the exact date
[55:37] or the exact year. Um
due to the numerous accidents that we
[55:44] have at that intersection, we we've
tried several different uh orientations
[55:48] of guardrail and um it continually gets
hit because the vertical curve going to
[55:53] the north is just not enough sight
distance to know that hey that's a 90°
[55:57] corner and when people come up to it
they smoke the guardrail and go into the
[56:01] the neighbors property. So, um, with
that, the estimated C cost of
[56:06] construction for this, uh, vertical
curve realignment is about $2.5 million.
[56:11] Of that, the cost of the county will be
10%, so $250,000.
[56:16] There will be an additional, uh, utility
relocation uh, cost for West River
[56:21] Electric coming forward here in the the
next couple months. We're working
[56:25] through that agreement with them. That's
uh, relocation cost is approximately
[56:29] $150,000. So, um, the cost will be
approximately $400,000 to the county and
[56:36] each time we've had to replace that
guardrail is between $5 and $10,000 and
[56:40] it's sometimes a couple times a month um
in the winter months. So, with that,
[56:46] I'll stand for any questions.
>> Commission,
[56:50] » Mr. Chair.
>> Yes, Commissioner. I'm going to move to
[56:52] approve the rideway and utility
certificates and letting authorization
[56:56] for Reservoir Road and Lamb Road
intersection reconstruction project PH
[57:01] 663701
PCN8.
[57:05] » Second A motion from Dur a second by
Drews. All in favor say I. I.
[57:10] » Motion carries. Um item B. Joe, you
>> item B is a uh letter or an item to
[57:18] terminate an agreement between Sunset
Ranch and Pennington County. This uh
[57:23] this agreement dates back to 2012. Um
and dates back even further than that.
[57:29] Uh the road district had approached a
previous highway superintendent. um
[57:33] right after the uh subdivision had gone
in and they paved uh the section line
[57:38] road going to the the subdivision um was
sub
[57:43] sub uh oh it was not built to any sort
of good standard at the time. Um this
[57:50] agreement is actually one of it is the
only agreement that we have with any of
[57:54] our 165 plus road districts. Um,
Commissioner Wimbach and myself, as
[58:00] stated in the memo, met with the road
district a couple two, three years ago,
[58:04] um, and said that, okay, we'll crack
seal this in 2025. We'll get a chip
[58:10] sealed in 2026, which both of those have
actually been done. Um, and with that,
[58:15] we would like to terminate the agreement
as it's the only one that we have with
[58:19] any of our 165 plus road districts and
kind of just make everything the same
[58:24] with all of our road districts. So with
that, I'll stand for any questions.
[58:27] » Commission,
>> Mr. Chair,
[58:31] » like Mr. Joe had said, we we met with
these people and they clearly understood
[58:35] they they had a a request from the
county to they requested the county to
[58:40] to crack seal and chip seal and then
they would take over from that point.
[58:44] So, but Commissioner, are you?
>> Yeah. I'm just going to move to
[58:47] authorize Highway Superintendent to send
formal written notice of termination to
[58:50] Sunset Ranch Road District regarding
maintenance of a portion of 156th
[58:56] Avenue.
>> Seconds.
[58:59] » Have a motion from Durham, second by Ros
Connect. All in favor say I.
[59:02] » I. I.
>> Motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Joe.
[59:05] » Thank you.
>> Items from human resources, HR or
[59:09] changes.
[59:13] Hello. and welcome our new uh HR
director.
[59:17] » Hello.
So on here, I'm recommending to revise
[59:21] the HR organizational structure to have
the HR manager directly supervise those
[59:27] HR generalists.
And going forward, the HR manager will
[59:32] be expected to provide that countywide
leadership and oversight of those
[59:36] generalists uh within the scope and
obviously help with improving the
[59:40] consistency along with myself and align
that HR manager position within the
[59:46] scope and complexity of the role.
So, I I would like to have you guys
[59:52] consider to update the HR manager and HR
generalist job descriptions and the
[59:56] organizational chart to reflect the new
structure and then also move to
[1:00:01] reclassify the HR manager role from a
P4.1 to a P4.2.
[1:00:07] » Cheer.
>> Yes, Commissioner Hancock. So, I agree
[1:00:09] with the move to update the HR manager
HR generalist job descriptions and the
[1:00:14] organization organizational charts to
reflect the new organizational structure
[1:00:19] effective 8:30 2026.
>> Second,
[1:00:26] » Mr. Chair,
>> Commissioner.
[1:00:28] » Yeah, I can't support the request. uh
and you know we just went through
[1:00:34] reviewing the organizational structure
and that just got adopted and there was
[1:00:38] a discussion about you know getting an
HR director on board and then reviewing
[1:00:42] that and so uh I know you just been here
a few weeks and so I know that this was
[1:00:49] a request from the previous staff as to
how they would like to see things but uh
[1:00:54] I'm [clears throat] looking more on a
model of and which you know has been
[1:00:57] presented before but a model of Minhow
County where they don't even have an HR
[1:01:01] R manager position. They have an HR
director and they have a generalist and
[1:01:06] a support staff and the HR director
manages all the generalist and manages
[1:01:12] you know the HR department. And so, uh,
my reason again for saying no is
[1:01:19] secondarily that, uh, um, this is one
thing that I think the county is too
[1:01:25] heavy in and that is, uh, leadership and
we have a lot of people, uh, in
[1:01:32] leadership and in positions. Uh, we have
a lot of mid-level management and I
[1:01:37] believe in some of those departments, we
have positions that are topheavy. If you
[1:01:42] look at the org chart, it's very
vertical and then you look at it and you
[1:01:47] say who's actually, you know, doing the
job if somebody's going to supervise and
[1:01:51] manage. And so those are, you know, just
my objections that I think that we could
[1:01:57] run leaner and uh across the county, not
just in the HR office. So
[1:02:02] » chair,
>> yes, Commissioner Hackup.
[1:02:05] » Well, I agree. I had talked to um
Tell me your first name again, and I'm
[1:02:10] going to always forget it.
>> Melissa. Melissa, sorry, Melissa, I need
[1:02:14] to call your name for a few times. I
agree with Melissa. Um I think you
[1:02:18] always need a second. I think if
Melissa's um gone, there's always nice
[1:02:23] to have a second. Now she puts a third
and a fourth and a more titles. Um I'm
[1:02:29] not going to be agreeable to that, but I
think um when you're gone, you always
[1:02:33] need a second. So I agree with that. and
with the generalists. Um it sounds like
[1:02:39] with Ivana, she's uh built up a
relationship as well. So that makes a
[1:02:44] good team effort to do things. But like
I said, if you keep adding I need this,
[1:02:48] [clears throat] I need this, then I
agree with Commissioner Durr, but at
[1:02:51] this time um when you're running your
organization, I just talked to you about
[1:02:55] this. When I'm running something, I
always want a second. And I have that in
[1:02:59] one of my ladies named Janice. Um if I'm
not there, she takes charge. So, she's
[1:03:04] basically doing my job. Um, so I
appreciate that you moved that forward.
[1:03:09] I think again I'm in agreement of how
you're running and moving forward in a
[1:03:13] way that you've recognize someone that
you know can take your job or not take
[1:03:17] your job but help you with your job to
make it more efficient and effective for
[1:03:21] Pennington County. So, thank you
Melissa.
[1:03:25] » Mr. Chair, Commissioner Drew,
>> I would uh move to update the HR manager
[1:03:30] and HR generalist job descriptions and
the organizational chart to reflect the
[1:03:34] new organizational structure effective
August 30th, 2026.
[1:03:40] Have
>> a motion and a second. Any discussion on
[1:03:42] that motion?
[1:03:45] None. Seeing none, all in favor say I.
>> I.
[1:03:49] » Opposed?
>> I So, let's do a roll call.
[1:03:55] Drews
>> I
[1:03:56] » Durr.
>> Nay.
[1:03:58] » Wifeenbach.
>> Nay.
[1:03:59] » Ross Connect.
>> Hi.
[1:04:01] » Hadcock.
>> Hi.
[1:04:03] » Motion carries three to two.
>> Thank you, Melissa.
[1:04:08] » She has one more.
>> Um,
[1:04:09] » what did you say?
>> She has one more item.
[1:04:11] » You got one more. Um,
>> yes. And and does that
[1:04:15] » public defender compensation?
>> She has two.
[1:04:17] » That
>> Oh, interim pay request. I'm sorry.
[1:04:20] » Yep. Two more.
>> Okay. Item B.
[1:04:23] » Uh, yep. And this one is the during the
consolidation of the HR department. Uh
[1:04:29] Yavana did step in in a time of need and
ensured all HR operations continue to
[1:04:34] function effectively. Uh and I would
like to provide interimm pay for her
[1:04:40] support and fulfilling that vacant role
of the HR director from May 5th to
[1:04:45] August 1st. Chair
>> Commissioner Hadcock. Um I think uh
[1:04:49] Ivana like I just said does a wonderful
job but uh to be consistent for me um
[1:04:54] and I had talked to you about this too
Miss Melissa that um I have not when
[1:04:59] other people have stepped in from public
defenders uh Trevor's position the HR
[1:05:04] and um equalization um I was consistent
with um and most of the board has been
[1:05:11] too as well of not paying that
retroactive uh back pay um in those
[1:05:17] areas. is. So, I won't be in favor of
this because of that, not because I
[1:05:21] don't think she does a wonderful job.
Um, I just think if we're going to do it
[1:05:25] for one, we need to do it for all. And
you are going to change a process, which
[1:05:29] is nice. And once I see the process
changed, um, I will probably in that
[1:05:34] case be consistent as well of approving
these because you have made the changes
[1:05:39] you needed to do. But with no policy or
procedure with that, um, I appreciate
[1:05:44] that they're making the changes, Miss
Moose.
[1:05:46] » Mr. Chair,
>> Commissioner Duce.
[1:05:49] » Um, I agree with the, uh, proposal. Uh,
I think that when individuals like Yvana
[1:05:56] step in and are willing to take on that
responsibility during the interim, uh,
[1:06:01] that they, uh, earn the, uh, adjustment.
So, I'm going to support this, Mr.
[1:06:07] Chair.
>> Commissioner Dur.
[1:06:09] » Yeah. So, Melissa, I'm just going to
give a little background on this. So,
[1:06:14] uh, basically the county has been
without an HR director since last
[1:06:18] October until you came on at the
beginning of this month. And so, no,
[1:06:24] there's been no leadership direction
coming from HR organizationally about
[1:06:29] policy changes, anything. I mean, it's
been HR in the county has been coasting
[1:06:35] since last October. And so we did have
two other individuals that worked in the
[1:06:40] HR office that asked for a a a change in
a leadership position or one of them
[1:06:47] specifically a senior HR manager asked
for kind of an interim appointment that
[1:06:52] would include interim pay and uh that
that individual was holding you know a
[1:06:58] senior management position and we
declined to do that. And not only during
[1:07:04] that whole time frame, uh, getting back
to Commissioners Hadcock's comments,
[1:07:10] which are spoton, the, uh, other people
in the county stepped up. The commission
[1:07:16] office took up a big load of some of the
HR responsibilities and coordinating and
[1:07:20] working. And so it was really in the
absence of a direct leader there was a
[1:07:26] responsibility that was spread across
multiple uh departments and everybody
[1:07:30] just kind of sto stepped up to the plate
and said we're all here to help and in
[1:07:35] fact at one point in time we had one
person be prior to the combined HR we
[1:07:41] had one individual that we created an HR
generalist title because we had no more
[1:07:46] HR people in the office and so we had
one individual
[1:07:50] sage that, you know, just kind of
balanced things and stepped up to the
[1:07:56] plate and did those things and we didn't
give additional pay. We changed the job
[1:08:00] position and made it an HR generalist.
But, uh, so there were a lot of people
[1:08:05] that stood up to the plate and if we
were going to make this change in my
[1:08:08] mind, then we would need to go back and
do the same thing to everybody else that
[1:08:13] requested it and was denied. And so
that's the reason I can't support this.
[1:08:18] » Okay. Thank you. Um
Jordan, can you go back to the last
[1:08:22] motion we made? Did
show me the the whole motion? I mean the
[1:08:28] the on on this here
computer screen.
[1:08:31] » Sure.
>> Is it didn't it actually include a
[1:08:34] raise?
>> The it did include a reclassification of
[1:08:38] the HR manager.
>> That would give her a raise.
[1:08:40] » That Yes.
>> Okay. So, all right.
[1:08:45] So, Mr. Chair, I'm going to move to deny
this motion request for interim pay for
[1:08:53] this position.
>> Second.
[1:08:55] » A motion in a second. Any other
discussion? Okay. All in favor of the
[1:08:59] motion of leaving everything the same,
but we prior motion is good. We're I
[1:09:05] just want to say thanks Melissa. You
came in at a really rough time. We're
[1:09:10] very happy to have Melissa on board. Um,
and we're very happy to have you Yvana
[1:09:15] on board and and Sage and everything's
working out and we've got a great
[1:09:19] environment now to work with and uh
we're like we talked before about moving
[1:09:23] forward with having a great
communication with all the staff. So,
[1:09:26] but anyway, all in favor say I.
>> I
[1:09:29] » opposed. I
>> So, one I opposed. Is that correct?
[1:09:34] » Okay, motion carries four to one
and we'll Thank you, Melissa. We got
[1:09:40] » public defender.
>> Public defender
[1:09:42] » run.
>> What?
[1:09:44] » Joanna
>> 14C.
[1:09:45] » 14C.
>> 14C. Yep.
[1:09:47] » Public defender compensation.
>> Yep.
[1:09:49] » Okay.
>> Want to make sure you guys were good to
[1:09:51] move that forward to move her pay change
uh to step 1068.63.
[1:09:58] » Chair.
>> Yes. Commissioner,
[1:10:00] » just a question. Um, why August 2nd
instead of she wasn't actually appointed
[1:10:06] till they had the interviews, right?
August 10th. Am I correct?
[1:10:12] » When when I spoke to her, I think they
made the offer around that time frame.
[1:10:17] Um, and that's that's she didn't really
have an official letter from that
[1:10:22] committee that said an effective date.
So, I think that's when the the offer
[1:10:26] came through.
>> Jordan, did you have something?
[1:10:29] » Yes. In essence, basically we were
trying to make it easy on per uh payroll
[1:10:32] personnel. And so because we figured she
was already functioning as the interim
[1:10:36] uh public defender appointed by the
advisory committee, then we just started
[1:10:40] at the beginning of a pay period in
which she was actually appointed the the
[1:10:44] public defender.
>> So I thought it said she was appointed
[1:10:47] on August 10th.
>> On August 10th is when they did make the
[1:10:50] offer and I believe she accepted it. I
want to say the same day.
[1:10:53] » So you appointed her when you had the
interviews. It was before August 10th.
[1:10:56] It was August 2nd.
>> Right.
[1:10:58] » Okay. Now I get it. Thank you,
>> Mr. Chair.
[1:11:02] » Yes.
>> I'm going to move to approve the
[1:11:04] compensation for Pennington County
Public Defender
[1:11:08] Joanna Lawler at grade P53 step 106863
per hour or 142 75040 annually effective
[1:11:17] August 2nd 2026.
>> Second. Okay. We have a motion from Dur,
[1:11:22] a second from Drew. All in favor say I.
I.
[1:11:25] » Motion carries.
We're done with you. Thank you.
[1:11:31] » Look forward to working with you. Uh
items commission office July 6th
[1:11:34] facility closure update. The board will
be asked. This is Jordan, right?
[1:11:39] » It sure is.
>> Go ahead and speak, Jordan.
[1:11:41] » All right. I'll kind of touch base on uh
what how we got here in the first place
[1:11:45] and then uh what we've done to present
at least some options here for the board
[1:11:48] to consider. And so if you recall, it
was back in July. I don't believe we had
[1:11:52] it ready for that July 7th since that
had happened immediately after cyber
[1:11:56] incident. But for the July 21st meeting,
we presented a quick memo to the board
[1:12:00] just kind of saying that hey this is
what happened um because of
[1:12:04] administrative um processes that were in
place there uh certain employees of the
[1:12:10] county were told not to report to work
on July 6th. Now after that when finally
[1:12:15] leadership and everybody got to you know
be staffed in the same room and the word
[1:12:19] got out it decided that the facilities
would remain completely open even though
[1:12:23] some employees had been told not to
report to work. And so what we talked
[1:12:28] about at the last meeting was whether or
not you wanted to either apply the
[1:12:32] emergency facility closure policy that
exists in the handbook even though this
[1:12:37] did not fall under all of the criteria
that it needed to meet in order to be
[1:12:41] considered an emergency facility
closure. And so that was one option that
[1:12:44] we could do. And then the board floated
a couple of other ideas that I then kind
[1:12:48] of fleshed out into four different
options that we could try to do
[1:12:51] something or nothing, I guess, in
essence uh to to finally put this matter
[1:12:55] to bed. and then payroll will make any
retroactive corrections that we have to
[1:13:00] do for this event. And so there's not
exactly a correct resolution to this.
[1:13:05] It's all a matter of what comfort level
does the board have in trying to fix
[1:13:09] some of the mess that was created by
maybe some miscommunication um but also
[1:13:14] balance that against the fiscal
responsibility you have to the taxpayer
[1:13:16] dollars that this depending on what you
do could end up costing a little bit of
[1:13:20] money. chair. So
>> just just one thing Jordan, sorry.
[1:13:25] » So um why I'm saying or
>> I'm not trying to interrupt you Jordan.
[1:13:29] It's all right.
>> So the direction was when the call was
[1:13:33] made, they you told me they called the
department heads and told them what
[1:13:37] direction.
>> And so basically it was a communication
[1:13:40] between the sheriff, the EM director,
and all the department heads kind of
[1:13:44] saying, "Okay, so um this is what has
happened. there's a cyber incident and
[1:13:48] you need to figure out what you're going
to be doing with your people
[1:13:50] essentially. And then at that point,
they had also spoken to some
[1:13:53] commissioners and kind of got a feel and
felt like well I think it's wisest if we
[1:13:57] let the employees know just blanket let
them know that hey um you should not
[1:14:02] report to work unless your supervisor
tells you to. And so that was kind of
[1:14:05] the direction that people got in a big
old mass text to everybody using our
[1:14:09] system. So,
>> so that tells me that the supervisors or
[1:14:12] the department heads, whoever, um,
potentially with their job description
[1:14:17] weren't needed that if they didn't have
to report on Monday. So, it wouldn't be
[1:14:22] actually if if I'm saying an emergency
in a sense. It's just that if we don't
[1:14:27] have the capability for you to do
anything that day, basically, you're not
[1:14:31] needed.
>> Exactly. Yes. it was they had to
[1:14:34] determine for themselves whether or not
there was meaningful work that these
[1:14:37] employees could do and if they felt well
if we don't have computers because again
[1:14:40] we didn't know the full scope of the
incident at that time so everyone was
[1:14:44] kind of operating blind and so it was
well if we don't have computers then
[1:14:47] these people can't do work and so
there's no reason for them to come to
[1:14:50] the office
>> so we have have we ever had an emergency
[1:14:53] where we where we needed and you might
not know this and since I've been here
[1:14:57] » that we didn't need people for a certain
reason it always when we call we called
[1:15:02] it emergency we didn't need anybody
basically you got to stay home. So
[1:15:06] that's why I'm trying to determine okay
so the supervisors and the people
[1:15:10] actually said you know we're not going
to need you because of these reasons. I
[1:15:14] want to treat the employees right, but I
also it's not an emergency in one sense
[1:15:19] and we made a deter determination with
our um department heads that you know
[1:15:25] some people could still work. So how do
you call it emergency in one sense and
[1:15:29] then the other I get it um you can't you
can't do anything once you have that
[1:15:36] kind of cyber incident.
>> Um I'm I'm having a hard time not paying
[1:15:41] in one sense and then I'm I don't know
what to do. So, how many people remember
[1:15:46] we asked you, how many people did we
determine um weren't paid that day?
[1:15:51] Like,
>> that is the challenging number that
[1:15:53] we're still trying to get down to. So,
we can go off of some payroll records,
[1:15:56] but we don't have records of which
employees weren't there because there
[1:16:00] just aren't no records for them. And so,
instead of having payroll go through and
[1:16:03] dig through everything, what we did is
we tried to gain just some averages so
[1:16:07] that we could come up with some numbers.
So, we looked at the Mondays preceding
[1:16:10] and after that event and just compared,
okay, well, general hours, how many
[1:16:15] would have been here, how many weren't,
and we identified a potential 30 to 50
[1:16:19] people who potentially were not paid and
did not report to work on that day from
[1:16:25] what our averages were showing should
have been the numbers. And then above
[1:16:29] and beyond that, some people didn't
report to work and had to use their own
[1:16:32] personal paid leave.
>> So, the bottom line is
[1:16:36] Right.
[1:16:39] It says do not.
>> Okay. And then you clicked on the link
[1:16:42] in oh the response time frame that said
the full message actually did say
[1:16:48] » how about we do this. How about we go
over the options and then we can
[1:16:51] » in the text. Mr. Chair,
>> he's got four options. So then we can
[1:16:54] kind of figure out see if there's
something.
[1:16:56] » So if it's 30 to 50 people, the main
thing is what is 30 to 50 people on the
[1:17:00] cost. Number two, um make sure that none
some of those, you know, that they
[1:17:05] weren't supposed to report anyway. So we
don't just pay in emergency 3050 people
[1:17:09] that were off that were paying 30 or 50
people that were supposed to supposedly
[1:17:14] report. Make sense?
>> What that cost is?
[1:17:17] » Yeah. Yeah.
>> So, yeah, my comment on this is the
[1:17:20] chair did not authorize an emergency
closure. And so, you know, when you have
[1:17:26] uh department heads or others that put
communications out that were not
[1:17:29] authorized by the commission that says,
you know, AB and C, and I'm sure at the
[1:17:33] time there was a little bit of
communication issue, maybe
[1:17:36] miscommunication.
Uh but uh and my issue with this is the
[1:17:40] fact that I was here that Monday morning
and the building, this building was open
[1:17:44] to the public and it's not like the
sheriff is going to say to his
[1:17:48] correction staff and to the deputies, uh
don't report to work today. Um and so we
[1:17:54] had employees that did come to work.
There were employees in this building
[1:17:58] and that showed up. And the other issue
is that this was not just on that Monday
[1:18:04] following the 4th of July. We're talking
about
[1:18:08] a a really the cyber incident caused a
lack of productivity and there were many
[1:18:12] employees that did not have computers to
do their jobs. And so you found uh you
[1:18:17] know other opportunities within the
office to continue to work and to you
[1:18:22] know get paid. And so part of this
emergency closure also if you're going
[1:18:26] to say it was an emergency closure is
everybody that showed up would get paid
[1:18:30] time and a half. And so I don't think
that that's fair to uh across the
[1:18:36] organization to say you came to work
that day, you get time and a half uh due
[1:18:41] to our emergency policy and you stayed
home and took leave time and so we're
[1:18:46] going to you know you take your leave
time and so I think to be fair and
[1:18:50] equitable across the board, you know,
and again I said it the last time this
[1:18:55] is why we give you know uh leave
benefits to the employees and the fact
[1:19:00] that it was a Monday after a Fourth of
July hol holiday is going to make it
[1:19:05] difficult when people submitted their
time to say, you know, were you already
[1:19:09] on vacation? Did you take vacation? And
nope, now you're going to get paid for
[1:19:13] that or now we're going to pay these
people time and a half. Uh, and so, um,
[1:19:19] I'm looking to do nothing other than
what has already been done, and that is
[1:19:22] just utilize leave time, go leave
without pay, and I'm not looking to pay
[1:19:26] overtime. and he's got the financials in
here as to what the options would cost.
[1:19:31] I looked at those yesterday and my
comment about this is uh it this
[1:19:37] incident over the last two months has
cost the taxpayers time and money. Um
[1:19:42] their inability to do business with the
county, some of them not being able to
[1:19:46] close on their properties, paying
additional fees to do business uh with
[1:19:50] the county. And so it's been a a
hardship the last couple of months
[1:19:54] across Pennington County to the
employees, to our staff, to leadership,
[1:19:59] uh to our teams, and we have a lot of
good people, but I'm not looking to
[1:20:03] split the hair over this and try to
figure out who gets time and a half and
[1:20:07] who doesn't.
>> Mr. Chair.
[1:20:09] » Yes, Commissioner Drews.
>> So, I'm at the on the other end of the
[1:20:14] spectrum. Uh I believe that uh if
employees were told not to report
[1:20:21] uh because of the incident that took
place and they were they were scheduled
[1:20:25] to work that day that they should be
eligible for pay because of the
[1:20:30] direction that was provided. I'm not in
favor of the of the time and a half uh
[1:20:36] for other employees, but I believe that
those employees and if that's 30 to 50
[1:20:40] employees, uh certainly the departments
know of those that were scheduled to be
[1:20:45] on vacation during that period of time.
So that should not be very difficult to
[1:20:50] isolate those individuals. Uh but I
think anybody that did not show up
[1:20:54] because of the direction provided of
saying not to report to work uh should
[1:20:59] be compensated.
>> Can you go over the options with us,
[1:21:04] Jordan? So absolutely give us a better
idea of what we're looking at here. Or
[1:21:08] if somebody wants to make a motion, I'm
good with that, too.
[1:21:10] » I'll just really quickly touch on the
options. I won't get too far into the
[1:21:13] weeds in this. Option A would have been
just uh leave things as they were
[1:21:17] already handled. So this was we followed
the existing employee handbook as we
[1:21:21] interpreted it, noting that it was not
an emergency facility closure. So
[1:21:26] knowing that people were told not to
report to work, we had them just kind of
[1:21:29] use their own leave balances and if they
didn't have any leave balances, they
[1:21:32] took unpaid time off if they weren't
able to report to work. So that's what
[1:21:35] happened for option A. We could leave it
at that and move forward. Option B would
[1:21:39] be to apply the emergency facility
closure compensation from the policy
[1:21:44] that exists in our policy. We would just
be applying it to this exceptional
[1:21:47] situation. So, this is a unique
situation that we feel could kind of
[1:21:52] qualify, but we're not going to say
that, you know, in uh in perpetuity, but
[1:21:56] at least this one event we would apply
this to it. And then that's where you
[1:22:00] would pay people time and a half for
those who did work. And it's I've got a
[1:22:03] rough estimate of 45,000 for the people
who got the time and a half, 325 for
[1:22:07] leave. that would be refunded to
employees who utilized their personal
[1:22:10] leave and up to about 10,000 maybe
11,000 for employees who took unpaid
[1:22:14] time off is our estimate for that.
Option C is what Commissioner Drews just
[1:22:18] mentioned. We don't give the time and a
half but you still manage those who did
[1:22:22] not report to work and utilized leave
balances or took unpaid time off as
[1:22:27] well. And so that removes basically that
45,000 for the time and a half but still
[1:22:31] leaves the potential impact for the
leave benefits that are refunded back to
[1:22:35] these employees. And then [snorts]
option D was uh again it was floated at
[1:22:40] the from the dis at that July 21st
meeting of just well maybe we could just
[1:22:44] give everybody a a broad application of
eight hours of administrative leave.
[1:22:48] That would be simple to do
administratively but also it's more
[1:22:52] expensive because we're not identifying
who was impacted by this. We're just
[1:22:55] saying well if you were employed on that
day here you all go here's some leave
[1:23:00] and you can do what you want with it.
Um, and so there's a lot of question
[1:23:03] marks around option D. If you guys
wanted to talk through some of those
[1:23:06] options and really consider it, we can
get into that. Otherwise, those are the
[1:23:09] four that we prepared for today's
consideration.
[1:23:13] » And Mr. Chair,
>> yep, commission.
[1:23:15] » Yeah. And each of those in my, you know,
and again, I mean, it's option D is
[1:23:19] estimated to be $133,000
cost. And getting back to equity,
[1:23:25] uh, so
employees that didn't come to work and,
[1:23:29] you know, let's just say they had leave
time or they chose not to use their
[1:23:32] leave time, they stayed home and we're
going to pay them uh without utilizing
[1:23:37] leave time. And then the ones that
showed up, we're just going to pay them
[1:23:40] the regular wage and said, "You showed
up to work, you didn't, I'm going to pay
[1:23:44] you, too." And that's where it gets into
the inequity. And I think all of this is
[1:23:50] uh one thing uh to um our HR director.
The one challenge that I think you know
[1:23:57] we discussed with you during the
interview is that our policies and stuff
[1:24:01] in the employee handbook need to be
tightened up and we need to have a
[1:24:05] process in place as to how this stuff is
going to be implemented and we're
[1:24:10] currently lacking on that knowing that
it's something we have to work on. Uh
[1:24:15] but uh anyway, uh I'm gonna make a
motion that we go with option A.
[1:24:23] » Chair.
>> Yes, Commissioner.
[1:24:25] » Sorry, Commissioner Dur. I just want to
hear from some of the department heads
[1:24:28] or the HR and what they're thinking on
um some of these options and what what
[1:24:34] they think the process should be. Um
obviously, we had some people thought it
[1:24:38] was emergency. Um they sent that out.
They weren't trying to be facitious on
[1:24:43] it. they just figured it was an
emergency for a reason. Um because of
[1:24:48] bottom line, um it was a big impact. So
kind of want to know those decisions and
[1:24:56] some of the stuff on the bottom line of
why we should or should not pay.
[1:25:00] » So who would you want us? It looks like
the sheriff's moved forward for comment.
[1:25:05] Mr. Brian, you have the chair I and then
uh go ahead.
[1:25:10] Brian Mueller, Pennington County
Sheriff, and this this might my opinion
[1:25:14] might not is definitely not going to be
the opinion of the rest of the elected
[1:25:18] officials and department heads. But uh
um this is this is complicated and what
[1:25:24] I try to reflect on on this and I think
I talked to Commissioner Wenbach about
[1:25:27] this early on is this is an anomaly.
This is the first time this has ever
[1:25:32] happened in Pennington County and we
could have shored some things up better
[1:25:35] on the communication and on the front
end of it. But it leaves us with a
[1:25:39] really challenging situation. You have
uh some departments that told everybody
[1:25:44] to stay home. You have departments like
ours that have to keep up and
[1:25:48] operational. And it's even more
complicated than that in that we had
[1:25:53] small groups of pe of small teams of
people that we brought half the team in
[1:25:58] and half the team stayed home because we
just didn't have we didn't have enough
[1:26:02] work at that specific time. Um so uh to
pay the ones that just came to work and
[1:26:09] I and I like taking care of the
employees. I really do. um to just pay
[1:26:13] the ones that come to work without doing
the time and the half, I think it's
[1:26:16] problematic for 3/4 of the employees of
Pennington County that came to work that
[1:26:21] day. Um but also at the same time, I
think the the financial impact of paying
[1:26:27] everybody time and a half for coming in
and doing their regular work doesn't
[1:26:30] necessarily seem right for me. So, I
would support option A. And I know
[1:26:35] that's not going to be everybody's uh
that's not going to be real popular with
[1:26:39] everybody, but this is a tough
situation. I do think internally in our
[1:26:44] office and in probably everybody else's
office and department, we've worked out
[1:26:48] how we're going to handle this in the
future so we wouldn't have the same
[1:26:51] issue having a better understanding of
>> do you just bring everybody in bring
[1:26:58] everybody in and find something as
meaningful as we can to do for the day
[1:27:02] versus having some people stay home. I
think there'll be a combination of that
[1:27:05] if this type of thing were to happen
again, but we've learned a lot from it.
[1:27:08] This is a difficult situation and I
appreciate you guys working through it
[1:27:12] and listening. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Mr. Brian. And that that's
[1:27:15] correct. We we had several conversations
and I've had several conversations and I
[1:27:21] I'm going to second Commissioner Dur's
um request for option A. And the reason
[1:27:28] is is that I remember working in in
retail world and and had we got
[1:27:33] burglarized and and and when they got
burglarized everybody had to go home and
[1:27:38] nobody got paid. I mean, but I'm holding
in front of me here one, two, three,
[1:27:45] four front and back sides of paper that
are filled with acred leave time uh and
[1:27:54] vacation time for the county employees
of Pennington County. Pennington County
[1:27:58] has a really really lenient
uh leave and paid acral approval time.
[1:28:05] Right now, we have a current liability
that we don't report on our books of
[1:28:10] $4.6 million.
So, if these people all cashed in their
[1:28:15] leave time tomorrow, we would have to
write a check for $4.6 million. I think,
[1:28:21] you know, after having extensive
conversations and and through the whole
[1:28:24] cyber incident, I can guarantee you one
thing. I've learned a ton. I some of it
[1:28:28] I didn't even know how people's
operations were connected between trying
[1:28:32] to find priorities, trying to do all
these things. Uh we have an IT
[1:28:36] department that's working 12 hours a day
as much as they possibly can. We had
[1:28:40] people come in from the outside. We had
commissioners get together, bring in
[1:28:44] people
um from the outside cyber security
[1:28:49] world. Um everybody's taking it on the
chin here and I don't think this is
[1:28:53] asking that much um for someone to just
you to we take option A, we we roll with
[1:28:59] it and I think that most of it we've
rolled with it already and yeah, did we
[1:29:03] learn a lot? We learned a ton and I tell
you it's going to take months before we
[1:29:07] have a uh a uh end of operations uh
you know report that says this is how we
[1:29:15] can do it better. There's no doubt that
we can but uh we've learned a ton and uh
[1:29:20] I think that with this being a factor
that our our leave and our vacation pay
[1:29:26] is so so broad and so lucrative to the
employees that I'm I'm fine with option
[1:29:32] A. So, but it looks like Trevor wants to
say something.
[1:29:36] » So, but did Commissioner Gary, did you
want to say something?
[1:29:39] » I'm going to offer a substitute motion
to uh adopt uh item C.
[1:29:44] » We have a substitute motion. Do we have
a second for that?
[1:29:48] » Second.
>> Okay. So, we have a motion and
[1:29:50] substitute. So, we have a substitute
motion to offer C. So, you pull C up,
[1:29:55] Jordan.
>> You bet.
[1:29:59] » Okay. So, everybody can see C. And then
Trevor, you you want to make a comment?
[1:30:04] » Sure. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Um I'm
just going to address uh Commissioner
[1:30:07] Hancock's um request to have department
heads come up and give their opinion. Um
[1:30:12] my department was one where I I was the
only one there that day. I told everyone
[1:30:17] else to to stay home. Um got the call on
Sunday and sent the text out on Sunday.
[1:30:22] Um and I would I would definitely
support option C. Um like uh
[1:30:26] Commissioner Drews was was discussing
there. Um, I do however understand the
[1:30:32] complexity of this decision. Um, because
my office is one where we just had no
[1:30:38] one there and I realize that there's a
lot of other uh scenarios to encompass
[1:30:43] there, but I wanted to give my opinion
for for my staff. Um, I I'd support
[1:30:47] option C. So, thank you.
[1:31:05] I had to check and make sure it was
still morning. Good. Good morning, Laura
[1:31:09] Retzel, states attorney. I just want
to say that the text that was sent out
[1:31:16] to all of our employees said, "Do not
report."
[1:31:20] And I think that
that needs to be clear for the record
[1:31:24] that our people were told not to report
and many of them live paycheck to
[1:31:29] paycheck and even even one day of
impacted leave um matters and so I am
[1:31:37] stepping forward in support of option C.
>> Thank you Miss Laura.
[1:31:43] So, oh,
[1:31:51] » go ahead. You have the floor.
>> Good morning. Scott Guffy, Bington
[1:31:54] County natural resource director. Uh, so
I was notified by the sheriff on 4th of
[1:31:58] July in the cyber incident and that a
text would be going out to our
[1:32:02] employees. I called my foreman and my
operations manager telling them to
[1:32:07] report to work. Uh, so we did work. I
would support option A.
[1:32:12] Thank you, Scott.
[1:32:16] » So, we have a substitute motion on the
floor for option C
[1:32:20] » here.
>> Yes, Commissioner Hog.
[1:32:22] » So, listening to both sides, um the
complexity and the anomaly, I'm going to
[1:32:28] agree with meaning I was looking at
option C, but as actually with common
[1:32:34] sense of it all, um this was a isolated
incident. Um, bottom line is just the
[1:32:41] complexity of trying to figure out for
the employees
[1:32:45] how we treat one and not the other
because some came in, they're going to
[1:32:49] be mad, some going to be mad because
they don't get paid. But the bottom line
[1:32:53] comes to the complexity and the anomaly
for me um for what happened. Um
[1:33:00] hopefully at this point we've learned
something. We've always learned
[1:33:03] something here and I've haven't had to
deal with this and I've been in here
[1:33:06] what 12 years. So, uh, bottom line is,
um, I'm going to have to go with option
[1:33:12] A today just because of, um, some of the
cost wouldn't, uh, put us over the edge
[1:33:19] in one sense, but also to treat both
sides fair. So, I appreciate it.
[1:33:24] » Okay. So, right now, we have a motion
for option C. So, let's vote on that
[1:33:28] motion. And, uh, all in favor say I.
>> I. I.
[1:33:32] » Opposed? I.
>> So, let's do a roll call.
[1:33:36] » Drew. I
>> Durr.
[1:33:39] » Nay
>> Wifenbach.
[1:33:41] » Nay
>> Ross Connect
[1:33:44] » I
>> Hadcock.
[1:33:47] » Okay. So motion fails. So does that
>> mean it goes back to the motion?
[1:33:52] » The original motion which is option A.
>> Option A was made by Dur. Second by
[1:33:57] Wenbach. So let's do a roll call vote on
that one.
[1:34:01] » Drews. Hey,
>> I
[1:34:09] » may
>> I motion carries 32. So, we'll move on
[1:34:13] to the next item.
>> Can we take a five or 10 minute break?
[1:34:18] » Let's take a break here.
>> Yep.
[1:34:19] » Okay,
>> we'll take a five or 10 minute probably
[1:34:22] is going to be lean more to 10 to 12
minutes break. So,
[1:34:26] » 11 minute break. Okay, we'll compromise.
[1:34:36] Gonna get back rolling here, guys. Um,
thanks for the patience. Uh, we're going
[1:34:42] to start in on some uh the item
16.
[1:34:51] Correct. Item 16, the provisional
budget. So, I guess I'll give you the
[1:34:55] floor, Jordan. Is that how you want to
operate that?
[1:34:57] » Absolutely. I'll at least kick us off
and then as the board has questions or
[1:35:00] wants to go follow down any rabbit hole,
we can dive down them as we go. Okay.
[1:35:04] » And so, as we all know, this is the
statutoily mandated meeting the first
[1:35:09] Tuesday of September that we have to
meet to consider the provisional budget
[1:35:12] for final adoption. It does not have to
be made today, but we should decide by
[1:35:16] motion as the board, you I should say,
not me, um whether or not you want to
[1:35:19] continue this to a further date or add
any other special meetings as well. As a
[1:35:23] reminder, September 17th is kind of
slated right now as our approval our
[1:35:28] final approval date, but if the board
happened to get through everything they
[1:35:31] wanted to today, you could approve it
and adopt it today. I'd just have to go
[1:35:34] type up a resolution. Um, but I had two
presentations here that I wanted to
[1:35:38] definitely walk you through. And the
rest of this is really just background
[1:35:42] information that if you had some
questions, we can go through some of the
[1:35:45] stuff we've seen. But for sure, I wanted
to at least touch base on the updates
[1:35:49] from the provisionally approved budget
on where we're currently looking at
[1:35:53] personnel figures because that's the the
biggest kind of well, what are we going
[1:35:56] to do about that? Because those
increases can be in the millions of
[1:35:59] dollars. And so I took the loose board
direction that we wanted to go ahead and
[1:36:04] look at those figures if they included a
2.5% cost of living adjustment, uh,
[1:36:09] continued step increases, and then I
think it was a 5.75% health insurance
[1:36:15] increase. And that'll be the second
presentation I've got is to start those
[1:36:18] conversations on healthcare because I've
now finally looked into some of those
[1:36:21] numbers. And I have concerns is where
I'll start with that. But let's begin
[1:36:27] with the personnel presentation that
I've got here. If it'll load. There we
[1:36:31] go.
[1:36:34] So, first I wanted to give us the
baseline of what was provisionally
[1:36:37] approved. And so, we compiled the data
from multiple sources. is we put
[1:36:41] together a spreadsheet for personnel
figures that gave us a baseline as of
[1:36:44] June 2026. That would have been the
number that you did approve
[1:36:48] provisionally. And so the provisionally
approved figures did not include benefit
[1:36:52] premium increases. It didn't include
shift differential pay. It didn't
[1:36:55] include outofclass pay. And it didn't
include any leave payouts for
[1:36:58] anticipated retirements. All of that was
left off of those. No promotions,
[1:37:02] nothing like that. It was a very
baseline flat number that we were going
[1:37:06] to use to then compare against these
other options that part of them the
[1:37:10] board has already made by motion and the
rest of it is just kind of general
[1:37:13] direction without an official motion
yet. And so the provisionally approved
[1:37:17] budget for J July the personnel totaled
71,966,000
[1:37:23] and that excludes unemployment and the
self- insurance fund which essentially
[1:37:27] you'd be double counting that self-
insurance fund because it would be an
[1:37:31] expense in group insurance and then
another expense in claims paid and
[1:37:34] everything like that in the self-
insurance fund. So for the baseline
[1:37:37] figures 719 is kind of what we were
looking at for personnel. And there's
[1:37:40] the breakdown of what all is included
within that figure. regular wages, time
[1:37:44] of service, overtime, taxes, retirement,
and group insurance. Then we looked at a
[1:37:50] really quick five-year history of actual
expenditures and personnel versus what
[1:37:54] was budgeted, approved budget. And so
that is the approved budget, not the
[1:37:58] final budget after they uh got any, if
any, uh supplements. And so you can see
[1:38:03] the trend. We were running about 93.4%
then 94.5. We're typically within that
[1:38:08] 95% of personnel spent. And the majority
of what you don't see from that being
[1:38:14] unspent is typically in that group
insurance line or at least historically
[1:38:18] that's where we've seen the majority of
it. There have been some instances where
[1:38:21] you had salary salvage in certain
budgets where they just weren't fully
[1:38:25] filled in salaries but really the
biggest swing there is well we budgeted
[1:38:29] for someone on a family plan they came
in and just declined coverage so now
[1:38:33] we're saving 20,000 $30,000 a year. And
so that happens enough times in the
[1:38:37] county that you start to see that 95%
utilization.
[1:38:41] And as you can see in 25 and 26, the
budget numbers were tight and are tight.
[1:38:47] And so as we're looking at the 2027
provisionally approved budget, it is a
[1:38:52] significant increase. Not quite a
million dollars, but still not nearly as
[1:38:56] as big of a jump as you were seeing when
you were jumping from say 23 to 24's
[1:39:00] budget of 61.9 up to 67.7 million in
personnel. And so it's started to slow
[1:39:06] down and tighten up as as the commission
has given directive to kind of let's
[1:39:10] control these increases. And that's what
this graph represents.
[1:39:14] And so then we look at the breakout of
that provisionally approved personnel
[1:39:17] figures for 2027. And 78% of that is in
salaries and wages. And that is still a
[1:39:23] little shocking to me because that is a
little bit uh better than the industry
[1:39:26] standard. Usually you see benefits take
up a much bigger chunk of someone's
[1:39:30] total compensation. And so to see this
just means that we are definitely direct
[1:39:34] paying our employees uh more than than
the the average I should say for local
[1:39:39] governments.
So then we look at what we changed to
[1:39:42] the provisional. And so after the
provisional budget was approved, the
[1:39:45] commission office worked with department
heads again and elected officials to
[1:39:48] refine the personnel figures even
further. And then do note that the
[1:39:52] following figures are compounding
factors on each other. So when I present
[1:39:55] budget impacts for each of these
options, those are approximate because
[1:39:59] if you pick a COLA and a step increase,
they they add to each other because
[1:40:03] they're compounding. But this is some of
the impacts that we looked at here for
[1:40:07] post-provisional changes. We were
looking at an increase to the budget if
[1:40:10] we were to add in a 2.5% cost of living
adjustment. We anticipate that about to
[1:40:15] be $1.6 million. and then continued
annual step increases on the anniversary
[1:40:20] month of an employees hire date of hire,
it's about $528,000. And then the
[1:40:26] insurance premiums, this is where
uh we'll we'll get into this more later.
[1:40:31] Uh right now, just with about a 6%
increase of current premiums both to the
[1:40:35] employee and the employer, you're
looking at an extra $350,000.
[1:40:38] And then there were known changes and
reductions. The sheriff came at the last
[1:40:42] meeting and offered up some cut
positions and also we went with a 4%
[1:40:46] reduction. And so that 4% reduction only
applied to the sheriff's budgets at that
[1:40:50] meeting, but we went ahead and applied
it to the exact same departments that we
[1:40:55] did it for in 2026's budget. And so that
would be the sheriff all divisions,
[1:40:59] highway, ESC 911, state's attorney's
office, public defenders office, and
[1:41:04] buildings and grounds. And that amounted
to a net reduction in the budget of
[1:41:09] about $2.3 million for that 4% cut just
to salaries and wages. And so as we look
[1:41:14] at the total updated personnel figures,
we're now rocking somewhere around 717
[1:41:21] with the ads and the subtractions. But
then that means that those employees are
[1:41:25] getting that cost of living and step
increases. And then there will be a
[1:41:28] known increase to insurance premiums,
which I'll go through in a minute. Uh so
[1:41:33] you see that it's a change from the
provisionally approved budget by.3%
[1:41:37] basically $200,000 but it is still a
change from the approved 2026 budget by
[1:41:43] almost $600,000.
[1:41:47] And that is the end of the personnel
spreadsheets. Any question on those
[1:41:50] figures right there?
>> That is Oh sorry I will say one thing.
[1:41:56] » So you have miscellaneous. You have
self-unded insurance, insurance, debt,
[1:42:00] services, transfer out, and then your
total is 220689
[1:42:04] or 696.
>> Which sheet are you?
[1:42:08] » I'm on looking at this one.
>> Can you see it?
[1:42:12] » Oh, that one. Okay, I can.
>> Can you explain the 22068696
[1:42:20] for me?
>> Let's see if I can bring that up. Give
[1:42:23] me one moment.
>> Thank you, Jordan. I appreciate that.
[1:42:26] And thank you by the way for uh you and
Kenner's time yesterday and explaining a
[1:42:30] lot of the budget stuff as well.
>> Absolutely. All right. So basically
[1:42:33] miscellaneous is stuff that doesn't
necessarily fall into the major
[1:42:36] operational categories, but it still is
um items that the county has to pay for.
[1:42:41] So the self-funded insurance plan is
essentially double counted in a county
[1:42:45] budget because each of the individual
departments have a county portion that
[1:42:49] they have to deduct from their own
budgets that then go into the self-
[1:42:53] insurance fund. But we also have claims
paid. We have administrative costs that
[1:42:57] those premiums are used to pay for in
the self- insurance fund. And so that 10
[1:43:01] million five, that's our admin fees,
that's our claims paid, that's our
[1:43:05] dental, that's our life, that's all of
that stuff included that's coming out of
[1:43:09] the 603 fund, which is our self-
insurance fund.
[1:43:12] » So it comes out, what's the average of
the that comes out every year the last
[1:43:15] few years? Do you know?
>> Are we talking about claims or the admin
[1:43:19] fees? because the admin fees are between
$1.5 to $2 million and our claims have
[1:43:23] been uh staying kind of consist still
going up every year but pretty
[1:43:27] consistently between uh I think the
lowest in the last 5 years was $6.7
[1:43:31] million and just recently we had a $7.7
million claim year and so
[1:43:36] » so that's why I'm asking you because you
you put them all in one which is 10
[1:43:40] million 531440
right
[1:43:43] » but do you have the average of like all
of that through the other years meaning
[1:43:47] » we do yes we have all that broken And I
am definitely working through those
[1:43:50] financial um pieces.
>> And the insurance part is pay the
[1:43:55] insure.
>> That $1 million of insurance that is our
[1:43:58] um usually our our property and
liability insurance. That's what that
[1:44:01] is.
>> Debt services.
[1:44:03] » Debt services payments on the bond. So
essentially that's what that 6 million
[1:44:07] is is we had bonded that money and
that's what we owe in the interest.
[1:44:11] » Okay.
>> And and in principal.
[1:44:13] » Okay. And then we're going to get the
interest on it. uh we still as long as
[1:44:17] we maintain that fund balance kind of uh
where it was because if we spend it down
[1:44:22] then we won't get as much interest but
we are still anticipating having some of
[1:44:25] that bond money left so there will be
interest in in this in this budget
[1:44:29] figure. Yes.
>> Yeah. Because usually it's about a
[1:44:31] million or million something. So that's
going to help our bottom line. And then
[1:44:34] transfers out.
>> Yep. And then the transfers out those
[1:44:37] are operational transfers out where they
just have to be included as line items
[1:44:40] within the budget. It's just moving
money from one fund to another fund. But
[1:44:45] it's not causing us debt. We already
have it in there.
[1:44:48] » It is exactly it's a self-balancing kind
of thing on the balance sheet is what it
[1:44:52] is where you take money out as an
expenditure say from the general fund
[1:44:55] and then you add it as a revenue over in
say the emergency management fund a
[1:44:59] restricted fund. And so payment in there
is counted as a transfer.
[1:45:03] » Sorry. So basically is it the restricted
plus others?
[1:45:07] » It can well I mean sometimes it goes
from a restricted to a restricted. For
[1:45:10] example, the unorganized road levy is
its own fund, a 200, but our road and
[1:45:16] bridge fund is the one that the
expenditures come out of the 2011. So,
[1:45:19] we're transferring that full amount that
we levy from the 200 into the 2011 that
[1:45:23] goes into that $4.5 million for
transfers.
[1:45:26] » And those are basically washes. Yes.
Okay. That's what I mean. Okay. Thank
[1:45:29] you.
[1:45:33] » Commissioner Der, you have the floor.
>> Okay. Jordan, go back to your personnel
[1:45:36] if you would.
>> Absolutely. [clears throat]
[1:45:42] So, I know at uh the previous meeting
when we talked about this, we had some
[1:45:49] um open positions. What the average of
open positions were in the county and at
[1:45:53] one point in time when that number was
calculated. I believe it was 84 open
[1:45:57] positions
>> at one point in time. Yes, we did have
[1:45:59] [clears throat] 84 positions. I know we
do batch hiring and I think at least my
[1:46:05] comments from the dis were you know
looking at those open positions and uh
[1:46:11] we might be budgeting for a full year of
a position knowing that it's not going
[1:46:16] to be hired until 60 70% through the
fiscal year. So why would we fund 100%.
[1:46:22] And those 84 positions at that point in
time, open positions without all the
[1:46:27] taxes and everything else associated to
it was a little about $4.5 million.
[1:46:33] [clears throat]
So we asked, you know, what departments
[1:46:37] those would be in, and there was a
discussion about departments looking
[1:46:40] internally at those positions that you
have and coming forward. And it's my
[1:46:46] understanding the only one that came
forward with some recommendations uh was
[1:46:51] the sheriff.
>> That is correct.
[1:46:54] » So aside from some of these other
calculations
[1:46:59] uh and I know that we're operating at
about 95% and we cut the 4% in those
[1:47:04] major departments looking at the current
end of I think the one I'd looked at
[1:47:09] that you had for the end of June. So
basically halfway through the fiscal
[1:47:14] year and looking how personnel is
running across the county that we're
[1:47:17] kind of doing okay even though we made
that 4% cut.
[1:47:21] » So far it does seem like the budgets
especially at that halfway mark were
[1:47:25] very close to 50% of where they should
have been in the salaries and wages
[1:47:29] lines. And so no one seemed to be
running super hot like 62% when we're
[1:47:34] half of the year through. And so payroll
luckily is one of those that's fairly
[1:47:37] consistent except for specific budgets
where you may have to hire in temporary
[1:47:41] seasonals stuff like that where you will
see a spike in say the summer years or
[1:47:44] during the rally or or stuff like that.
But we're trending on target right now
[1:47:49] » because and not only that but when we
budgeted for that we only budgeted step
[1:47:53] increase in the cola and overtime. Yes,
>> we did not budget the shift differential
[1:47:58] pay, all the promotions. And if you go
back and look at the last year, uh so
[1:48:03] far in this fiscal year, I mean, there's
we we budgeted one step increase and
[1:48:09] there's been multiple step increases
given across the county costing
[1:48:15] a few hundred,000.
And so the fact that they're still able
[1:48:18] to operate within the personnel budget
even though we didn't budget fully in
[1:48:22] addition to uh that cut that we made, I
would still like to see an analysis of
[1:48:29] those departments and where the open
positions have been and look at trying
[1:48:35] to gain some of that uh and cutting in
the personnel
[1:48:40] uh a little deeper for those open FTEEs
that have not been filled historically.
[1:48:45] And the reason I'm saying that, well,
we'll talk about when you get up to your
[1:48:49] insurance presentation.
[1:48:54] » Chair,
>> Commissioner Hadco.
[1:48:57] » So, for me, just tracking the increases.
Um, I talked to Jordan and Kenner about
[1:49:02] some of this. Um,
it seems like it's it it's making you're
[1:49:08] showing us a lot of numbers and and I
appreciate that, but we're not
[1:49:11] accountants. Um, I know how to do some
of it because you already know I've been
[1:49:15] here for a while. Um, other people
probably know some of it, but your
[1:49:20] bottom line is is your revenue
expenditures. Um, how much bottom line
[1:49:25] you're going to need,
where you're going to get it from.
[1:49:28] That's what our decisions are. Um, if we
want to cut more, if we want to not cut
[1:49:34] more. Um, but it's hard to do that with
not all the revenues and expenditures
[1:49:40] and those numbers at a bottom line right
now. So I know you're showing us all
[1:49:46] this and I appreciate that, but a lot of
times when you're when you're doing this
[1:49:51] and you have five commissioners, not
everybody's going to understand all the
[1:49:55] budget stuff. It takes you a bit. Um,
but most people understand revenue and
[1:50:00] expenditures, right?
So,
[1:50:04] um I don't the last I heard and we just
talked about it was 46, now it's 49. Um
[1:50:10] I know we need some money for um
um self assured and I get that. I don't
[1:50:16] know what that percentage should be. Um
it looks like from an average it was
[1:50:21] probably 4%. Um I know in 23 it was 6%
and then it was you know at one time 2%
[1:50:29] uh one time 10%. Um it'd be nice to know
before we decide at 6% or 2% or or what
[1:50:39] these cuts should be all those other
numbers and then you could actually come
[1:50:43] to a bottom line for self-insured and
then if you want to make more cuts
[1:50:47] looking into people other people's
budgets about and not that I'm against
[1:50:51] that for positions that have been open
two years or a year or whatever or
[1:50:58] making it like Jerry said you know if
you're not going to hire till August,
[1:51:02] you know, that's a big that's a big
difference in your budget um when you've
[1:51:07] put it down for all year plus their
benefits and everything else. So, I'm
[1:51:11] getting all that, but I'd like to know
now what's kind of the normal stuff is
[1:51:18] where we're at. I we got provisional and
that's not even close because it's
[1:51:22] changed five times since then. Um but um
you're making a hard time tracking even
[1:51:27] as a commissioner where we're going with
it when we don't know the numbers. So if
[1:51:32] we can have some some it doesn't have to
have bottom line numbers but some of
[1:51:36] these numbers about how much we're
needing because that's going to make a
[1:51:40] huge difference if we're taking gross
CPI stored CPI
[1:51:44] um instead of just cutting a bunch of
services and cutting a bunch of people
[1:51:49] in between. So, um, my bottom line is,
um, show us some numbers. Show us the
[1:51:54] interest. Haven't seen the tiff interest
yet. Maybe we need to get the auditor
[1:51:58] involved in some of this, uh, budget
process because maybe that's going to
[1:52:02] help with those numbers, Jordan. Maybe
you already have had the the auditor
[1:52:07] where you had to ask her questions. But
some of those, uh, things might be
[1:52:10] easier to run through auditor's office
and then bring back with a with a
[1:52:15] definite amount. So, um, I just keep
seeing them changing and when you're
[1:52:21] trying to run a budget as a department
head and they don't know where they're
[1:52:25] going. I mean, we set budget. I get
that. I got we got we set budget, but um
[1:52:31] if I'm a department head and I'm only in
a commissioner, this is driving me
[1:52:35] absolutely nuts.
>> Try to figure this out. And this is last
[1:52:39] year I got it. Last year I got it. We
were trying to cut. We needed to get
[1:52:43] that that 8 million down. We got to we
got to be more defined and a little bit
[1:52:48] closer in July. You should almost be
where we need to be. We I understand we
[1:52:52] had a cyber incident stuff, but I had
paper and was still being able to run
[1:52:56] about the same numbers that you guys
came up with. So, um I just like the
[1:53:00] clarification and the stuff. Either we
start earlier on what we're doing or do
[1:53:05] something different to end this in
September is about the craziest thing
[1:53:10] I've ever seen. uh trying to get these
numbers and trying to figure it out as
[1:53:13] commissioner uh where I'm going, let
alone uh be up straight as a department
[1:53:18] head, you're just I'm pretty sure
they're just freaking them out. Okay,
[1:53:22] that's my opinion just by listening to
people and what they're trying to figure
[1:53:26] out on their budgets.
Um it it's and I don't mean as attack or
[1:53:31] anything bad on you Jordan because and
and Kenner because you've been good with
[1:53:34] me and and learning all this stuff and
getting through this, but um I don't I
[1:53:40] don't think you need a computer to
figure out some of this stuff. Some of
[1:53:44] it you should actually go, okay, based
on these numbers that we have right now,
[1:53:49] we we have to do some more cuts,
department heads, we're going to have to
[1:53:52] look at your two-year, one year. And
Jerry just gave my heads up. I get it,
[1:53:55] but it's September.
So, if we could do it a little bit
[1:53:59] different or maybe get ahead of the game
next year, if it's going to take us
[1:54:02] longer, Jordan, maybe that's what we
need to do. And I'm not against that. I
[1:54:06] don't think anybody because you're going
to have two new commissioners.
[1:54:09] » Anybody's [clears throat] going to be
against that. So, by July, we got
[1:54:11] somewhat of an inkling. And then by
August, hopefully hit it, hit the ground
[1:54:16] running, okay, this is what we're doing.
That way, they have more of a heads up
[1:54:19] and so do we of how our budget's going
to look. So just just suggestions, not
[1:54:24] like you suck or anything, but that's a
weird word, but yeah. Um, very
[1:54:29] confusing.
>> Getting better though. Thank you,
[1:54:31] » Mr. Chair. Commissioner D.
>> Yeah. So, I'm going to make a few
[1:54:35] comments here. This is the same
information in addition to a little bit
[1:54:38] more that was presented last year during
the budget and [clears throat]
[1:54:43] it was given nothing but accolades about
how great the information is. First time
[1:54:46] we've ever seen it. There was also
comments about we don't want to approve
[1:54:51] a budget and make major changes until
the last meeting because then we don't
[1:54:56] give people time to talk about it. And
that was a comment from a commissioner.
[1:55:00] And so as I look at the budget
information, this is all the information
[1:55:05] I'm looking at and it shows if you just
go back to the general fund, it's
[1:55:10] showing that we would have to move money
into the general fund of about 5
[1:55:15] million.
So, the total transfers and everything,
[1:55:19] getting back to what Commissioner
Hadcock just went through,
[1:55:22] [clears throat] uh, you get down to this
is, you know, this is legislative
[1:55:27] audits, budget accounting. It's not like
we created this. It's how it's got to be
[1:55:31] in the books when the auditor sends the
budget off to the state. And so, you
[1:55:35] have to show into those areas. And if
you have a I think you have a breakout
[1:55:39] of applied cash.
>> Uh, yeah, but I don't know if
[1:55:44] » by fund. So anyway on this one it's
showing you know where you have to make
[1:55:47] transfers and these are all you know
governmental accounting where you have
[1:55:50] to make these transfers and some of
these yes have restricted funds that
[1:55:55] have reserves and you're moving it. It
doesn't mean that we don't have the
[1:55:58] money but it's it's a it's called
applied cash to make that fund balance
[1:56:03] for the expenditures. you have to move
that money and we do have restricted
[1:56:07] funds in the county that do levy and
they have to they have to be supported
[1:56:13] by the general fund and so you have to
make those so if you're levying a
[1:56:17] certain amount it doesn't cover what the
expenditures are or the operational
[1:56:21] costs then you're moving money out of
the general fund into that fund to make
[1:56:27] it balance and so the one that I think
we need to hone in on is the fact that
[1:56:33] the general fund is just shy of
uh supporting itself by about $5
[1:56:38] million. [clears throat]
And when we look at the growth in the
[1:56:41] CPI, and I think Jordan's got the
numbers of the growth in the CPI, what
[1:56:45] that would cost of the taxpayers. Last
year, we bank CPI. And I'm not looking
[1:56:52] at uh I don't want to take CPI this
year. I'm looking at just taking growth.
[1:56:58] Growth is one of those if you don't
take, you lose that growth forever. But
[1:57:01] uh so I'm looking at the growth and if
you plug those numbers in and Jordan
[1:57:06] could finish his presentation, but
a couple of comments that I have as I go
[1:57:12] through here because I'm looking at the
information and again I'm going to say
[1:57:15] that nobody in the county could get into
our financial module for [clears throat]
[1:57:20] nearly six weeks to look at our books
and accounting and uh to run reports and
[1:57:27] numbers. So, we were six weeks of not
being able to get into our computers and
[1:57:32] financial modules uh because the system
was down. And so, it's a little bit
[1:57:39] different uh you know, in this budget
process.
[1:57:42] And you just heard it, you know, this
morning from the treasur and the auditor
[1:57:47] trying to, you know, balance the books
across the county and we didn't even
[1:57:51] have, you know, cashiering and and
receding in in the treasur's office. And
[1:57:55] so anyway, I appreciate the information
and the budget information. I, you know,
[1:58:00] with what we've had to work with and
trying to get through this, I you know,
[1:58:04] it's I I understand it. It's uh and I
appreciate the effort. So,
[1:58:09] » cheer
>> commissioner head.
[1:58:11] » So, I'm not saying what they're doing is
wrong. I'm saying there's a better way
[1:58:14] that now that we went through the
learning curve last year and and I
[1:58:19] agreed last year it was good, too,
because we're going through a learning
[1:58:21] curve. We were trying to find stuff out
and we waited till the last time because
[1:58:26] you know Jordan Kenner we basically
worked through every day to try to get
[1:58:30] that done. I got it. So then I
understand also our computers went down
[1:58:36] but if I can still figure it out on
paper that we're about and I told you I
[1:58:40] got like 4 something almost 5 million as
well and that you're coming up with five
[1:58:45] million. Um it didn't take me to be a
rocket scientist or accountant to do
[1:58:50] that. Now then you take that 5 million
and then you can have discussions about
[1:58:56] cutting stuff. You don't need a paper
with numbers on it. Then you start with
[1:59:00] your commission because we are the
board. We are the budget and you say
[1:59:04] just like we did. We start with library.
We start with all those ones that
[1:59:08] basically you don't want anymore. Okay,
I got it. Or then you look at the ones
[1:59:12] you do want. Then you take those numbers
on or off added to the five or whatever,
[1:59:18] right? Or off. And then you keep
bringing it down. And then you decide,
[1:59:23] okay, you could take CPI and ask the
board, do you want CPI growth and CPI uh
[1:59:28] banked, you can put that in there. You
can always take it off later, right?
[1:59:33] Once we decide we do other cuts and then
by those numbers, you have something to
[1:59:39] work with to a certain extent. Then
you're going to add maybe
[1:59:42] self-infunded's going to come in and
you're going to have it's how it works.
[1:59:46] It's a good explanation of how to do a
budget with people that are just making
[1:59:50] decisions on revenues and expenditures,
right? And it simplifies it without me
[1:59:57] having to know all this. And it and it
simplifies it for people coming in. Not
[2:00:01] because you're doing anything wrong.
I'll keep saying that is we can do it a
[2:00:05] little bit better with those numbers and
not seeing all that. just tell us okay
[2:00:11] what I've seen and Jerry will come in
like he said and I'm not against that or
[2:00:14] Ron or whoever and say we have leave we
have other stuff we have to look at this
[2:00:18] so now we're at five okay or we're at
4.9 now [snorts] what do we need to do
[2:00:24] I'd rather have it and I think when
you're when you're commissioners and
[2:00:28] maybe I'm wrong um you need to know the
bottom lines and where we're going
[2:00:32] whether it's Jerry wants to cut library
and Debbie wants to cut who knows I
[2:00:38] don't I want to got 10 more employees.
So, let's look at that. Um, it's a lot
[2:00:44] simpler than keep going through this and
then continuing to do what?
[2:00:50] To figure it out by September, the end
of September. So, just just food for
[2:00:56] thought when you're doing budgets. Um,
it's you're the rocket scientists, you
[2:01:01] and Ter get the numbers and what you're
doing. We are the ones that make final
[2:01:04] decisions. That's that's the bottom
line. Show the expenditures. showed the
[2:01:08] revenues and and then give these guys
that are listening whether it's public
[2:01:12] or otherwise kind of what we're thinking
so they can have a intelligent
[2:01:15] conversation about what we're doing to
their budgets or even the public saying
[2:01:19] you guys are kicking butt. Hey don't
take my library whatever. Um leaving it
[2:01:24] to the last minute doesn't give a lot of
people and and I like do I like hearing
[2:01:28] what they have to say whether it's
public or or department heads or
[2:01:31] employees um to make a good decision. by
then it's hard for me to make one
[2:01:36] personally because we're we're at the la
the last minutes.
[2:01:42] So, anything we can do a little bit
different to figure those and come up
[2:01:46] with some of that stuff. Like I said, I
can come up with the basics of almost
[2:01:50] 4.8 4.9 myself just on paper.
>> Um it seems like we could simplify it
[2:01:57] just a little bit different. And yeah,
I'm not saying you did anything wrong.
[2:02:00] I'm saying we could do a little bit
better just from being in here and
[2:02:02] watching budgets for years. Thank you,
>> Mr. Chair. Could Jordan proceed with
[2:02:09] this presentation?
>> Yep, that's Jordan.
[2:02:11] » All right. And actually, I'm going to
enlist the aid of the HR director for
[2:02:14] this next one. This is going to be a
quick analysis of our healthcare, the
[2:02:18] 2027 kind of initial renewals here. So,
if Melissa would like to come up here,
[2:02:24] » Miss Melissa,
>> we've been working together with uh our
[2:02:28] Wellmark rep and other other uh people
to try to make sure that we get a better
[2:02:32] picture of kind of where the self-
insurance fund is right now.
[2:02:36] » Yeah. And and today is just the uh
formal renewal discussion. You know, we
[2:02:42] are just providing the historical
information, enrollment information. So,
[2:02:46] no board action is requested today. We
just wanted to give you guys a picture
[2:02:50] of where the fund stands today and some
background and context there. So the the
[2:02:56] plan currently has an average enrollment
of a little over a thousand individuals.
[2:03:00] And of that 54%
are employees, 17% are spouses, and 29%
[2:03:06] are dependent. So this will be important
as we evaluate the 2027 renewal. And the
[2:03:13] demographics will also help us
understand the overall size and
[2:03:16] composition of the of the self-
insurance fund we're supporting as we
[2:03:20] balance the affordability for employees
and the financial stability of the
[2:03:25] county. So I'm going to hand it off to
Jordan here and talk about the next
[2:03:29] slide.
>> All right. And so as that first slide
[2:03:31] showed, we had 1,50 total people on
members on the plan basically. So you
[2:03:36] would think 54% are employees. That
means they would take up 54% of the
[2:03:40] claims paid. As we're learning, it's
actually the employees are taking more,
[2:03:44] which is not not always as typical as
what you see in standard plans.
[2:03:47] Typically, we see a lot more of the
spouses hitting the plans than the
[2:03:51] actual employees. But this is a pretty
good utilization, I would say. Um, you
[2:03:54] can see that the spouses, they account
for 17% of the population, but they're
[2:03:58] taking 24% of the claims. That is
something you typically see with these
[2:04:02] health insurance plans. And so, as we
look at all this and we think, okay,
[2:04:05] $3.6 million in six months, that's what
has hit the self- insurance fund. self-
[2:04:10] insurance fund, we would anticipate it
probably be about double that then by
[2:04:14] the end of the year. So, we're looking
at expected claims of approximately $7.2
[2:04:17] million. Um, the average monthly claims
that we'd paid over the past four years
[2:04:22] on average again is $561,000 a month.
So, that's every month those claims go
[2:04:27] out. We actually pay them weekly and
then there's a monthly settlement at the
[2:04:30] very end of the month to make sure if we
had some credits, they give some back.
[2:04:33] If they had extras, we we pay up and
settle up every month. And so we only
[2:04:37] wanted to bring this to your attention
because of the fact that on the next
[2:04:40] slide I'm going to mention that the
industry be best practice recommends
[2:04:45] that an organization of our size
maintains a fund balance equal to six
[2:04:49] months of those actual monthly claims.
And so if we were to take our 4-year
[2:04:53] average, then we're looking at
approximately $3.4 $4 million that we
[2:04:56] want sitting in that fund so that we can
comfortably say even if something went
[2:05:01] wrong, even if we had another cyber
incident that maybe it took out even
[2:05:05] more of our computers, we could still
have money in the bank to pay the claims
[2:05:08] for when people go to a provider. We
want to make sure that they're able to
[2:05:12] use their benefits. And so that's
typically what they like to see is about
[2:05:15] 6 months because that can usually float
some of those really sharp downward
[2:05:19] turns and then you can build it back up
within time and not have to really freak
[2:05:23] out about, oh no, we're in the negative
balance now. we have to borrow from the
[2:05:25] general fund to try to supplement
things. So this that's just industry
[2:05:29] best standard is what they're
recommending.
[2:05:30] » Jordan, I can interrupt you for a
second. This chart will show us from
[2:05:33] 2020 2014 to 2025 what that balance was.
Is that correct?
[2:05:38] » Essentially, this is the average balance
throughout the whole year. And so the
[2:05:41] starting and the ending are higher and
lower than this, but yes, every year
[2:05:45] this was what our balance was.
>> Okay. So we're at 1.1 now and we really
[2:05:50] should be at 3.4.
>> 3.4 is where we're hoping to get to. And
[2:05:54] we understand that that's a pretty big
significant gap. As you can see, one of
[2:05:58] the biggest jumps we had from year to
year was about $600,000 in a really good
[2:06:02] year. And so we know even if we make
drastic changes to the plan, we're
[2:06:06] probably not going to be getting a
million, $2 million in a year, we're
[2:06:10] going to try to build the fund slowly
over a period of Melissa mentioned that
[2:06:14] to me earlier, but going back looking at
2021 to 2023, so two years,
[2:06:20] » we did something wrong. It may not have
been that we did something wrong. It
[2:06:24] could have been that the utilization
actually was trending a little bit
[2:06:27] differently. And so as we look at this
slide right here, we can see that for a
[2:06:31] period we were doing pretty well. We
were building the fund. We were getting
[2:06:33] comfortable with where the balance was
headed. And so from 2014 to 2024, there
[2:06:38] were no increases to premiums. And so
it's possible that as the downward trend
[2:06:43] started, they started make the
healthcare trust board was in charge of
[2:06:45] it at the time. and they started making
plan changes to try to mitigate some of
[2:06:49] those fund balance decreases because
they were seeing that trend coming back
[2:06:52] down and they were trying to take the
corrective actions without necessarily
[2:06:55] passing those costs.
>> This chart shows us the increases in
[2:06:58] that time frame zero and then 23 to 246
24 to 25. Okay.
[2:07:04] » Yep. And so that's when premium started
increasing. Plan changes continued and
[2:07:08] so they started taking corrective action
but it doesn't look like we're trending
[2:07:12] up as well as we'd like to at the
moment. We we'll know more as we finish
[2:07:16] out this year as to whether or not we're
we're still kind of maintaining the
[2:07:19] similar trends as these recent years.
And so we're going to keep an eye on all
[2:07:22] that and keep everyone updated as to
what our recommendations then would be
[2:07:26] just to try to make sure that we have a
healthy fund.
[2:07:29] » Question
you again. Thank you, chair. So the
[2:07:33] three to 3.4 million is not for this
year. It's it's to trend back up in the
[2:07:38] next three years to try to get up to
3.4.
[2:07:41] » Yes. because we don't feel it's going to
be realistic to try to say let's just
[2:07:44] influx real quick $2.5 million into the
fund one time. We want to make sure that
[2:07:48] the plan and the premiums are supporting
the fund year-over-year because if we
[2:07:52] said okay no increases and we'll just do
a general fund transfer of shoot the the
[2:07:56] 5.4 million for the St. Joe Street sale.
We'll just put it all into the self
[2:07:59] insurance fund but we didn't change our
premiums that means we're going to just
[2:08:02] keep seeing that downward trend back to
where where we're at right now. And so
[2:08:06] we want to do some more responsible
corrective changes incrementally and try
[2:08:10] to get that in a couple of years. And I
think Melissa and I had floated the idea
[2:08:13] maybe 3 to 5 years is a decent enough
goal to try to get us much closer than
[2:08:18] where we're at.
>> I'm thinking about a million this year.
[2:08:20] Is that what you were saying earlier?
>> Well, yes. Um, so the current the the
[2:08:24] current financial figures I've been
working on to try to tweak some of the
[2:08:27] premiums and make sure that it's not too
big of an increase to employees, too big
[2:08:30] of an increase to the employer still
could impact the county budget by
[2:08:34] increasing the payments that we would be
making into the fund by about a million
[2:08:37] dollars for the county's portion of it.
And then I think it was around a 6 to 7%
[2:08:41] increase for employees as I'm currently
running numbers, but none of that is
[2:08:43] finalized. That's all going to be talked
about on the 17th.
[2:08:47] » We also can increase some of the
premiums. It doesn't have to be for the
[2:08:50] million. You can also put some in on
that from general fund to increase it as
[2:08:56] well which we have done before.
>> Yes. Okay. Those Yeah, those one time
[2:08:59] influxes.
>> Okay. Thank
[2:09:02] » All right. And so the last I don't think
I skipped anything on this that I wanted
[2:09:05] to go over. So I think that was pretty
good other than it was interesting just
[2:09:08] from a statistical standpoint is that
72% of our members don't even have
[2:09:13] $2,500 in annual claims. So it's about
that we have 72% of our people not
[2:09:17] really using it that much.
13 individuals account for 34% of our
[2:09:22] claims. And that's uh that's pretty
standard. You see that in in these plans
[2:09:26] is that it's always going to be a couple
high utilizations that really drive
[2:09:30] those claims to where they're at. And we
don't want to penalize them for using
[2:09:34] the plan if they need it. That's the big
thing. Um so the last two slides here
[2:09:39] I'm going to throw back to Melissa if
she's willing to talk on the renewal
[2:09:42] talking points we've got so far.
>> Yeah. And just from the 2027 renewal,
[2:09:47] you know, we we'll look at establishing
a premium structure that's sustainable
[2:09:51] over time. So whether that be over the
course of the next three to five years,
[2:09:55] we don't want to impact the employees
too significantly nor the county. So um
[2:10:01] you could see the Walmart came in at
about 5.75 renewal. Um, so as we look at
[2:10:07] the approach going forward, we'll uh
avoid creating any significant one-year
[2:10:13] financial burden for employees or the
county. Uh, avoid placing an unnecessary
[2:10:17] financial burden for us and then just
really rebuilding that self- insurance
[2:10:22] fund. So, we'll look at different plan
designs this coming year, the 2027, and
[2:10:28] contribution structures as we move
forward.
[2:10:33] So today again it's just really to
educate you guys where the plan stands
[2:10:38] today. Uh so no nothing no action from
you guys today. Just wanted to give you
[2:10:43] that information. And then on September
17th we'll bring forward alternative
[2:10:48] plan designs for you guys to review. Uh
employee and employer premium
[2:10:52] contributions what that impact will be
to the county budget. Uh and then any
[2:10:57] impact on employees. and then October uh
6 will be the final approval from you
[2:11:03] guys.
>> Yeah. So, essentially what we're going
[2:11:07] to be looking at at September 17th's
meeting um or if we have any other
[2:11:11] special budget hearing scheduled after
that between that and the 30th is at
[2:11:14] least making sure that we've got enough
money in the budget that we're going to
[2:11:18] be able to handle whatever final
decision the board makes on the plan
[2:11:22] design on October 6th. And we need that
October 6th to be a pretty firm deadline
[2:11:27] because we're starting open enrollment
like a week or two after that. And so we
[2:11:31] need to make sure that we have enough
time to educate the employees as to what
[2:11:34] if any changes were made to the plan
premiums. And so we can separate the two
[2:11:39] sort of in that we can finalize a budget
saying, "Okay, well at least in the
[2:11:44] budget we're comfortable with this
number because we're hoping the
[2:11:47] liability will come in under that." And
then afterwards we can say, "Okay,
[2:11:51] budget's been set." And so we know we've
got all this wiggle room to play with.
[2:11:54] Where is our comfort level on setting
the final attachment points as to what
[2:11:57] the county pays, what the employees
play, and and what the plan ends up
[2:12:01] being if that makes sense. Melissa and
Jordan um having this conversation about
[2:12:06] with Wellmark, are they offering up some
options maybe that we introduce uh
[2:12:13] health savings plans and maybe have
contributions by the county to actually
[2:12:18] increase like deductibles but yet have
money available tax-free or whatever
[2:12:23] that we can offset because sometimes and
I think Commissioner Dur alluded to this
[2:12:28] prior about the benefits of having a a
taxdeductible plan,
[2:12:34] you know, saves money in the long run
because if they're paying So, is that
[2:12:39] something that's on the table with
Walmart? Are we that far along?
[2:12:42] » Yeah, that that is one of the
recommendations we'll have in there is a
[2:12:46] contribution to the HSA.
>> Okay.
[2:12:49] » Okay. Perfect.
>> And for the timeline, Wellar didn't
[2:12:51] promise promise, but they're going to
get as many of these alternates that
[2:12:54] we've asked for by
>> One of the things I noticed was that the
[2:12:56] the lower utilization's not even they're
not even hitting 2500,
[2:13:00] » right? So, I mean, what difference to
them if it would be 5,000 and there was
[2:13:05] a, you know, a provision there somewhere
that there was a a fund that was
[2:13:09] available for
>> an HSA that maybe the employer could
[2:13:13] » they could also do
>> a contribution tax-free that would
[2:13:17] actually lower their cost. So, I guess
it's a okay
[2:13:20] » chair commissioner. So I was in the
conversation because we had a department
[2:13:25] head meeting with the wellmark lady
who's very good at what she does and she
[2:13:29] did you're right commissioner Wimbach
she offered up a bunch of different
[2:13:34] areas that we can change or those
remember those higher or lower
[2:13:38] deductible people might go higher just
because of what that information we just
[2:13:42] learned like you just said at the 2500
they might raise it up not because of
[2:13:47] the amount but amount that they use it
in the long run. So, um, she was really
[2:13:53] good at what she did in the in the
wellmarked presentation, but I'd also
[2:13:56] like to know if any of the department
heads had any, um, information that they
[2:14:01] wanted to share since they've been in
that meeting because that might be a
[2:14:05] huge difference for the self-insured as
well. So, maybe if we [snorts] had a
[2:14:09] minute for people to department heads if
they have any interest on the
[2:14:12] self-insured and what they're thinking
on it.
[2:14:16] Thank you. Yeah.
>> Thank you,
[2:14:20] » Mr. [clears throat] Chair.
>> Yep. Commissioner,
[2:14:22] » I still have a couple questions for
>> Oh, Melissa Melissa,
[2:14:26] » Commissioner Dur had a couple questions
for you.
[2:14:30] » Commissioner Dur, you had the floor,
sir.
[2:14:32] So getting back to the funding level and
one of the things we had talked about
[2:14:37] before you [clears throat] got here
earlier in the spring and we looked at
[2:14:41] there were discussions about the
contribution on the county side into the
[2:14:45] fund
and what [clears throat] percent the
[2:14:48] county is paying on the family plan.
Let's just call it a family plan and a
[2:14:53] single plan. And I believe anyway that
we're kind of under the market trend as
[2:14:58] to what the county's contribution would
be on that. So do you have some
[2:15:02] comments?
>> Yeah, we are below the industry
[2:15:04] standards there and I think that is one
of the recommendations, one of the many
[2:15:09] that we'll recommend is increasing that
a little bit so we [clears throat] can
[2:15:13] get closer to that. It might not be the
full amount, but maybe even a half a
[2:15:18] percent closer to that each year. We
could look at that, but that's that's
[2:15:22] one of the goals is to get closer to the
industry.
[2:15:25] » Okay? Because if we and again if we were
to move the county's contribution up
[2:15:31] when we're talking about the dollars
that need to be collected to put into
[2:15:34] that fund. So if we're talking about
let's just say a 6% increase then we
[2:15:39] could absorb some of that and offset
that to the employees and not have that
[2:15:43] all fall onto them.
>> Right.
[2:15:45] » Okay. And then um last year and I've
mentioned it a couple times and I did
[2:15:51] talk to the HR staff, you know, was
discussed at a meeting here prior to you
[2:15:55] getting hired, but I wanted to look at
uh Delta Dental. And so currently we
[2:16:00] have a $1,000 deductible on Delta
Dental. And um I'd ask them to reach out
[2:16:05] to Delta to see I'm curious what the
utilization of the plan is and uh to
[2:16:12] look at having that out-of- pocket max
go not the deductible but the out-of-
[2:16:17] pocket max go from a,000 to 2,000 what
that would cost.
[2:16:21] And then there was a question I also had
about our life insurance. if we
[2:16:25] increased what the county uh the dollar
amount increased our life insurance
[2:16:30] currently I think is 10
and a lot of entities have a base plan
[2:16:37] of 50
>> okay
[2:16:39] » and so and my comment about Delta Dental
is [clears throat]
[2:16:43] when you get your renewal rate and then
again years of service you kind of get
[2:16:47] locked in and so you're not absorbing a
whole increase but uh when you have the
[2:16:51] market trend and you're at a high
utilization at market trend and and then
[2:16:55] you can raise that out-of- pocket
maximum up a little bit which a lot of
[2:16:59] the times doesn't cost a lot
[clears throat] but when you go to get
[2:17:02] your renewal uh you know you're not
hitting that market trend and so you're
[2:17:06] getting a better renewal rate and it's a
little different than our you know it's
[2:17:11] basically fully funded you know we're
only paying what they we're not managing
[2:17:15] it
>> right
[2:17:16] » like the self- insurance fund but a
couple of those things I'm just curious
[2:17:19] on the Delta Dentl what our utilization
is what the $1,000 out of pocket and
[2:17:24] what it look like uh to double that.
>> I do have the utilization breakdown. I
[2:17:29] can get that to you. Get that to
everybody.
[2:17:31] » Yeah, I think it would be good just for
the board to see what the utilization is
[2:17:34] just like this one to see a breakout of
the utilization and how close we are to
[2:17:39] market trend. And that's one thing that
I noticed when I came on the commission
[2:17:43] that the county share is kind of lower
than a lot of other counties and
[2:17:48] municipalities on the percentage that
we're paying of those plans.
[2:17:52] » Okay.
And if I
[2:17:55] » just just one thing, Jordan, it's in the
budgets. So how much is this changing
[2:18:01] the budgets once you change the the
plans? Is it a big difference? That's
[2:18:06] why I'm saying I hear you. That's going
to be another effect that you're going
[2:18:10] to have to change for department heads
that it's hard to do
[2:18:15] in a month or two weeks whenever when we
do our changes and how much are those
[2:18:18] changes and maybe it's not but um
because you're not going to find out
[2:18:22] till October 6th. So there's nothing you
could do about that Jordan but just food
[2:18:28] for thought for department heads or
otherwise there's another area that
[2:18:31] that's going to change our budgets for
27 either good bad or ugly.
[2:18:37] Uh yeah, sorry. I just wanted to give
additional information on Commissioner
[2:18:40] Dur's points there because Melissa did
look up some of the Bureau of Labor
[2:18:43] Statistics information on employer
versus employee paid in the percentages
[2:18:47] there. And what we found is that
industry standard, especially for local
[2:18:51] governmental agencies, the employer
typically pays between 85 to 90% of an
[2:18:56] employeeonly plan and between 75 and 80%
of a family plan. And for reference, we
[2:19:02] currently in 2026 are paying roughly
about 83% so of the single plan and all
[2:19:09] about 65 a.5% for the family plan. So
we're under potentially even 10% on a
[2:19:14] family plan if we were going off of this
bureau BLS um statistics on employer
[2:19:20] employee pays.
[2:19:28] » Yeah. Yeah, and thank you Melissa for
providing that information. That was
[2:19:34] » Anything else on that?
>> Okay, so that's all I had really to say.
[2:19:37] » Thank you.
>> That's the doom and gloom for the
[2:19:40] healthcare plan. No, it should be all
right. We're just going to make sure
[2:19:42] that we're uh keeping an eye on it.
>> No doom and gloom here, brother. So,
[2:19:46] let's uh go move on, Jordan.
>> All right. And then the other
[2:19:50] presentation I've got here was requested
by Commissioner Hadcock. She just wanted
[2:19:53] to see a little bit of a breakdown in
our revenues. There's not a whole lot
[2:19:56] here that I need to go through because
the uh the numbers are pretty much
[2:19:59] self-evident here. This kind of gives us
just a breakdown of where our means of
[2:20:03] finance come through, what our revenues
all go into. And so, as we talked about,
[2:20:08] um Commissioner Hadcock rightfully
asked, hey, those other financing
[2:20:11] sources, you see 4.7 in there. What all
is that? That's the revenue side of
[2:20:15] those operating transfers. And so, that
is once again just one of those numbers
[2:20:18] that gets added to the total. So, when
we look at that grand total of $137
[2:20:22] million, that's the means of finance.
That's not our revenues really because
[2:20:26] we're also then saying, well, cash
balance applied is going to be 9 million
[2:20:29] of that. And then we've got our other
financing sources which are just
[2:20:32] transfers within the county's budget but
from a restricted fund or a
[2:20:36] non-restricted fund to a different fund.
And so some of that information is a
[2:20:39] little bit double tapped there. But as
you can see, you could take down that
[2:20:43] 137 by 13.7 million. And so you're much
much closer to roughly about 125 million
[2:20:50] is what I'd say in revenues that we
currently have on the books. Um, and
[2:20:54] then I wanted to give a quick snapshot
of the top 10 line items. Number 10 is
[2:21:00] federal PIL dollars that we get 2
million on that. Number nine is the 911
[2:21:04] remittances. That's our um money from
state, right? Yeah. And the uh the feds
[2:21:10] on our 911 stuff. Uh but you can see
here property tax and this included
[2:21:14] everything. Property tax really is our
number one and our number two. But then
[2:21:18] we start to see other other sources of
income um other sources of revenue start
[2:21:23] to plug in some of those gaps because
sure 51 million is all going into the
[2:21:27] general fund for our tax levy but then
as we look even motor vehicle you got
[2:21:31] 3.7 for some of that stuff 3.6 for the
wheel tax the local government highway
[2:21:35] bridge 2.9. So millions of dollars are
not necessarily property tax and that's
[2:21:40] what's definitely supporting our budget.
And so you can see current property tax
[2:21:45] is sitting at 63.3. But then as we look
our charges for goods and services is 33
[2:21:50] million and any intergovernmental
revenue which is where that tilt stuff
[2:21:53] would fall or any other agreements we
have with cities and and counties town.
[2:21:57] » Jordan, can you take a minute to explain
cash balance supplied?
[2:22:00] » Sure. The cash balance applied is a
number that we have to do in order to
[2:22:04] ensure that all of our our uh funds are
in the positive. So basically, if we've
[2:22:10] got expenditures that are exceeding
revenues within a specific fund, you
[2:22:13] have to apply a balance of cash. Some of
that is fund balance, we can call them
[2:22:17] kind of for for for thought purposes
reserves is that they've been sitting on
[2:22:21] this fund balance saving up for usually
specific purposes and now they're going
[2:22:26] to be spending from those funds to get
down to uh you know the their balanced
[2:22:30] budget where it's not necessarily the
revenues are meeting the expenditures.
[2:22:34] It's that the revenues plus whatever
fund balance we're trying to apply, the
[2:22:37] cash balance applied to the budget will
meet what our our budgeted expenditures
[2:22:41] are. And so half of that is going to be
well a little bit more than half of that
[2:22:44] is going to be from the general fund
though and that's not a restricted fund.
[2:22:47] That is coming from the general fund
reserves to balance the current
[2:22:51] anticipated appropriations which are
>> you're saying that number is roughly
[2:22:54] four and a half.
>> It's about four 4.8 is where we're
[2:22:57] looking right now. So a little bit more
than half.
[2:23:00] » And then that takes the reserve to what
percent? That would take it down to I
[2:23:04] had that sheet open just a second ago.
>> Tony.
[2:23:09] » Yeah. And if again the numbers I'm
mentioning here do not include that 5.4
[2:23:14] million for the St. Joe Street building.
That's that's not included here. I have
[2:23:17] those figures ready somewhere but uh
they were not included when we were
[2:23:21] preparing these numbers. Um so we're
looking at a 26% basically um reserve
[2:23:28] balance. what what our target is.
>> The target has historically been between
[2:23:33] 20 and 25 is where the board has kind of
set it. That's that's just generally
[2:23:36] where we feel comfortable um as a
county. And so I think yeah, last year I
[2:23:41] believe the board made a a goal I should
say, not a motion, they made a goal to
[2:23:45] say let's keep that around that 25%.
>> And then we haven't um I think it the um
[2:23:51] growth and the CPI were brought up. Is
that something that's going to be coming
[2:23:54] up in your presentation here?
>> Uh no. Oh yes, it was actually. And yep,
[2:23:58] that was in the revenue presentation.
That is correct. Um, and so we did not
[2:24:03] incorporate growth or CPI or bankked CPI
into the numbers we have presented here
[2:24:08] on those appendixes. So all of that is
potential additional revenue that you
[2:24:13] could add into our budget calculations
and and then that would offset some of
[2:24:18] that cash balance applied. So as we look
at our levy options here, the
[2:24:22] provisionally approved revenue was
current 2026 year. So that's that's the
[2:24:27] the current 26 we just rolled over to
the provisionally approved 2027 budget.
[2:24:32] However, you can take obviously any
increases or decreases the board wants
[2:24:35] to look at as from our preliminary
numbers and these were a little bit
[2:24:39] tough to get because I know that
equalization and auditor's office
[2:24:42] haven't had access to real estate data
for getting all these total valuations
[2:24:45] until very recently. So we're still
working on making sure these are as
[2:24:49] accurate as possible before we you know
finalize this. But what we were seeing
[2:24:52] is that the average growth throughout
all the categories within the county is
[2:24:56] almost 2%. And so that would be a
potential $1.2 million increase to
[2:25:00] revenues. And then our CPI for this
year, as we know, is 2.5%. And then we
[2:25:05] did bank our CPI from last year, didn't
spend it, and we can hold that for up to
[2:25:09] three years. So this would be year
number two for that bank CPI of 2.9%.
[2:25:14] » And the other question I had, is there
any tiffs that are rolling off here that
[2:25:17] are any of any significance? I asked the
auditor and she was not aware of
[2:25:21] anything that was going to really
significantly hit our books. And so
[2:25:24] we're not we're not certain that there's
going to be
[2:25:26] » that number is not considered in the
growth then
[2:25:28] » it is not no
or unless they were scheduled to be paid
[2:25:33] off if if it was like oh it's an early
paid off tiff and now they're going to
[2:25:35] hit the books. That is not something
that calculated
[2:25:39] » if we it would I think it would do
detrimental harm if we didn't take the
[2:25:44] growth
>> because you can't get the growth back.
[2:25:47] if you don't take the growth
>> just for the fact that that's you know
[2:25:50] factored into what's happening on a
daily basis but uh so
[2:25:54] » so chair
>> yes commissioner hack
[2:25:56] » so it'd be nice to know what the levies
are once you do the increase if you take
[2:26:00] growth only only what is the increase
what is the growth in CPI meaning if you
[2:26:05] took it
um and brought down that 4.8 eight more.
[2:26:09] It'd be nice to know what the levy or
what the taxpayer is paying because I
[2:26:12] know the increase is not what the levy
is. We talked about that yesterday,
[2:26:16] Jordan.
>> Yes.
[2:26:17] » Um just because
if it's $4 increase, is it a $10
[2:26:23] increase with that levy? That's going to
be a huge difference. Um number two, you
[2:26:28] got to remember we provide services for
Pennington County. So, um I'm not
[2:26:33] against taking some of that. And I think
for banked, why are you banking it for a
[2:26:36] certain amount? Um and for why um that's
going to be a huge difference for me for
[2:26:42] me as well. um we can only cut people so
much and I get that and we had the
[2:26:48] departments do their 4% like I said if
you have the two-year people that have
[2:26:52] been not used or one year whatever that
might make a difference plus it might
[2:26:56] change um working with the uh
departments when they don't have to you
[2:27:01] know put in all the money for the whole
year like Jerry said for so some of
[2:27:06] that's going to bring it down naturally
anyway meaning it's going to make those
[2:27:10] increases a lot higher but Then wife and
Bach had brought up as well the leave
[2:27:16] and certain things. Um they used to
include that in on their totals which
[2:27:22] made sense but if they didn't leave that
year I get it but you also can't dump
[2:27:27] you know depending on which department
you're talking about um 500,000 on a
[2:27:33] department. So I don't know how you
balance that out for a department. I
[2:27:38] don't know how we balance it out if we
put it in um
[2:27:42] you know what do we call it contingency
>> but um it has to be put in there um like
[2:27:50] I said they put it in there before and
maybe some of that's why some of those
[2:27:53] were higher maybe the cash turn back is
is huge it'd be nice to see the average
[2:27:58] of the turnbacks
being from before and then hitting 26
[2:28:03] remember when we changed things to see
if those difference why you do that and
[2:28:07] you Know I I talked about that
yesterday. When you're doing a budget
[2:28:10] and you you do comparables, you start
seeing the anomalies or you start seeing
[2:28:14] the areas where it makes a huge
difference, the leaves, the different
[2:28:18] things where we're taking out and then
we come and say we're just going to do
[2:28:21] contingency and they don't have it in
their budgets. What's that going to do?
[2:28:25] » So you got to have you got to look at
all those pieces and parts and then
[2:28:29] understand their part in one sense and
do we take that out and put it of their
[2:28:33] budgets and put it in contingency. Um,
I'm getting where everybody's going on
[2:28:40] some of their stuff, but the bottom line
is if you're not doing the comparables
[2:28:43] and you're not looking, you're guessing
on some of this stuff and that's not
[2:28:48] your fault as well, but um
it it's it'll be easier to track by the
[2:28:54] turnbacks. How about that? Of every
year. Like how much did you have of
[2:28:58] January 1st, 2027? Did we have 3,647
this year? Did we have 2,200 the year
[2:29:05] before? Because if the average starts
being a certain amount, then you're
[2:29:08] going to see why uh the leaves and the
different stuff weren't taken out
[2:29:12] before. Should they be told? Should they
be acred as you say for revenues and
[2:29:17] expenditures? I get all that. But the
bottom line is is where where is that
[2:29:22] money coming from? And if you drain
everybody to a certain extent as well
[2:29:26] where we don't have an alternative area,
what also does that do to our reserves?
[2:29:32] So, all of those are big concerns
because I'm I'm hearing a lot of really
[2:29:36] good things that are coming out that
we're finding that we need to acrew for.
[2:29:40] But I also understand that we're taking
a lot of that stuff out of those budgets
[2:29:45] like um um restricted unrestricted be
unrestricted and also taking like wife
[2:29:51] and buck said on some of those leaves
and stuff. We took those out of their
[2:29:53] budgets if I'm correct as well. So,
where's that all coming from and how are
[2:29:58] we making that up? So, you're doing
good, Jordan. And like I said, I I'm not
[2:30:03] saying you're doing anything wrong.
There just a lot of things for you to
[2:30:06] think about and there's a lot of things
for us to know which I have not since
[2:30:10] I've been here known as much since you
and Ker have brought some of this
[2:30:13] forward. So, I appreciate that as well.
Thank you,
[2:30:18] » Mr. Chair.
>> Yes. [clears throat]
[2:30:20] » Jordan, did you have some more slides? I
looked at him yesterday, but
[2:30:28] » oops, that was the wrong button.
Not on that one.
[2:30:35] Was there one in particular that you
recall that you want to see?
[2:30:41] Because we did have other graphs. We had
other tables. We had a lot of other
[2:30:44] rollups.
>> Yeah. About the overall budget, I
[2:30:46] believe,
>> because this is one
[2:30:56] » [clears throat]
>> And Mr. Chair, while he's looking for
[2:30:59] that, I've got a question for the
sheriff.
[2:31:02] » Yes, Mr. Brian.
>> Mr. Brian.
[2:31:06] » Brian. Mr. Sheriff. [clears throat]
[2:31:12] » Mr. Dur has a question for you, sir.
[2:31:17] » Good. Good. Yeah. Still morning.
So,
[2:31:22] so Brian, I appreciate you coming
forward, you know, during this budget
[2:31:25] process and looking internally in your
department and looking for ways to find
[2:31:29] some savings and u
um making some of those changes to get
[2:31:35] us the information to show where some of
those cuts could be made. Um, the one
[2:31:40] I'm looking at specifically relates to
HR. And I see throughout your public
[2:31:46] safety budgets, I believe JSC, the jail,
and the sheriff's office, you have
[2:31:51] 136,000
in a line item that says HR.
[2:31:55] » Yep. And that's that is the line item
for um our background investigations and
[2:32:02] job recruitment specifically. And uh
we're we're looking at refining that
[2:32:07] number. and I talked about it the last
the at the last budget meeting on
[2:32:11] reducing that uh the background portion
of that down a little bit. So,
[2:32:15] » good. And then the other thing that I
would I mean for me kind of getting back
[2:32:19] to the kind of accounting and seeing
where the money is going if it's coming
[2:32:23] down to recruiting and HR type stuff, I
would like to see those dollars in the
[2:32:28] HR budget. That's my comments that so if
we're doing recruiting and personnel
[2:32:34] stuff that's being done by the HR office
now and we do have marketing that
[2:32:39] um to try to get a true understanding as
to what the expenditures are for HR
[2:32:44] related matters since we don't do
billbacks except for the highway
[2:32:47] department
but to look at some of those anyways
[2:32:53] just a comment if you could visit with
Melissa to make sure that we're pulling
[2:32:56] out of the appropriate budget for some
of that recruiting
[2:32:59] And since we do have marketing and we
have a new structure in HR that we're
[2:33:04] not duplicating services.
>> Yep. And and I've been visiting with
[2:33:08] Cody too and we're looking at
consolidating some things that we
[2:33:11] previously were taking out to third
parties this year and that should be a
[2:33:15] cost savings a little bit next year too.
>> Okay. Thanks.
[2:33:18] » Y thanks.
>> Thank you. Mr. Brian,
[2:33:22] » was this the one you were commission?
>> I know Jordan.
[2:33:24] » No.
>> No.
[2:33:25] » You had some other slides. It's all
right.
[2:33:27] » Um
>> and I Mr. chair. Y
[2:33:29] » I've just got a couple of notes that
I've made when I looked at this budget
[2:33:33] new information yesterday that came up
and I know that we'd looked at outside
[2:33:37] agencies
and we made some cuts last year to say
[2:33:42] that we were going to be moving forward,
you know, two to three years down the
[2:33:46] road to try to get to a balanced budget.
And then if you look at some of those
[2:33:51] decisions, I think we added over the
provisional budget, we're close to
[2:33:55] 600,000 over what we had for
provisional.
[2:33:59] Uh yeah, that's the one. They're one of
those. Anyway, and I know that it's a a
[2:34:05] work in progress and I we had a
discussion with a couple of departments
[2:34:09] about vehicles and uh um
before outside of public safety, but any
[2:34:17] other department that's got vehicle
purchases for 27, I would like to see
[2:34:22] those, this is me, I would like to see
those put on hold until we get a handle
[2:34:26] on our fleet management. Uh that's a
comment. And then the vacant positions.
[2:34:33] Uh we've talked about this, but we've
had an average of over 50 vacant
[2:34:38] positions for many years. Even though we
made that 4% cut in personnel,
[2:34:44] uh I would like to see if we could
absorb some of those cost on that
[2:34:47] because I would like to look for the
areas where we actually have it in the
[2:34:52] budget, but we are pretty confident
we're not going to spend it. But if
[2:34:56] we're allocating those dollars, and
let's just say we're allocating a
[2:35:00] million dollars on expenditures that we
know that we're not going to expend,
[2:35:04] that's a million dollars that we can't
fund other things that would be a
[2:35:07] priority for the county. Uh to include,
you know, looking at our self- insurance
[2:35:12] fund and trying to get that stabilized
and back up and looking at those cost
[2:35:16] share with the employees.
Uh, and there [clears throat] is if you
[2:35:22] go back into the five-year history of
the budgets that's in here. So, if you
[2:35:26] go if you look at those slides that show
five years of budget and actual
[2:35:32] expenditures,
you can look at
[2:35:36] uh some of those and see where we've
been budgeting across the county tens of
[2:35:42] thousands of dollars. Well, it's
actually hundreds of thousands of
[2:35:45] dollars that have been unspent in some
of those line items. And we did make a
[2:35:50] change last year we where we upped the
county's contingency from 100,000 to a
[2:35:55] half a million and basically kind of
using that as our little savings if
[2:36:00] something came up that we would do that.
And a comment, one of them gets back to
[2:36:04] title three funds. And Scott, you were
not here at the last commission meeting
[2:36:09] when we talked about title three. You
want to come forward, Scott, or
[2:36:15] » because I'm not sure that we've made a
decision on that. Have we moved that or
[2:36:18] not?
>> Yeah. I mean, you definitely moved from
[2:36:23] the
the sheriff's portion of the search and
[2:36:26] rescue and you increased the search and
rescue budget. Uh, and so that leaves
[2:36:30] title three. Um,
>> all right.
[2:36:32] » Open.
>> Okay. And so those funds and just brief
[2:36:37] us on your kind you weren't here but we
read your memorandum but what you're
[2:36:40] going to do with those funds.
>> Yes. Uh Scott Guffy Pankton County
[2:36:44] natural resource director. Uh we were uh
working with the Forest Service to do
[2:36:49] some fuels work um um with that money
which is allowable and that would
[2:36:56] basically save salaries in ours so we
could run our salaries through that
[2:36:59] title three dollars. Um, I think there's
a little over $73,000 in there. Uh, I'd
[2:37:06] like to spread it over two years. So,
40,000 this year and then the remainder
[2:37:10] next year. Uh, and then we can we can
put that into one agreement with the
[2:37:14] Forest Service. Forest service will
match that 20%. So, we'll actually make
[2:37:18] a little money on that too back to us.
And we've been working uh looking at
[2:37:24] areas to you to use it in. Uh the NEPA
is kind of the big thing kind of that
[2:37:29] hold up but a lot of stuff that they
have covered in NEPA we can hit it right
[2:37:32] away.
>> Does that make sense to you Jordan?
[2:37:34] » Yeah.
>> Yeah.
[2:37:36] » And then
>> and it just have to be spread through
[2:37:37] the salary lineup
>> and then the uh the areas there where we
[2:37:41] had all these
um that Commissioner Dur was talking
[2:37:45] about that we don't use those monies.
>> Right.
[2:37:48] » Can we identify those? Yes, we I mean we
definitely have a short list I would say
[2:37:53] of some of the ones that seems like wow
these are a lot of head space from
[2:37:57] actual expend expenditure trends versus
what the budget is for one example and
[2:38:02] it's always one of those where it's a
what if though. So they budget in the
[2:38:05] court administration for abused and
neglected attorneys and usually they
[2:38:10] budget around like $700,000 for those
abused and neglected. We've historically
[2:38:13] been spending $450,000. That means that
we've been putting 250,000 a quarter of
[2:38:18] a million into the budget just in case
we need to spend that. I understand that
[2:38:22] the costs are going up, the trend is
going up, but uh it doesn't seem like
[2:38:26] it's going up to that extent.
>> That's where the cash applied can come
[2:38:29] from then, right?
>> You could potentially
[2:38:31] » causes a cash applied, but I mean it
just it causes a budget maneuver that we
[2:38:36] don't necessarily like like to have,
>> right? If you cut off that little
[2:38:39] headroom there, you do run the risk.
Well, what if it comes in where they
[2:38:43] were anticipating it to be? what if the
trend is broken this year and that's why
[2:38:47] it's good to have some sort of
contingency plan for the county as a
[2:38:50] whole which is what the board did when
they
[2:38:52] » the other question I have is you know
since the IT incident um we've had some
[2:38:57] conversation about um having a cyber
security person I know we we lost a u um
[2:39:08] risk management person and his really
more the cyber security more along the
[2:39:14] lines of that risk management person. I
mean, or do we have to figure something
[2:39:18] in for a budget for that person because
they're not cheap? But it's uh after the
[2:39:22] conversations that we had with outside
council and some of these guys which are
[2:39:28] the top in the nation maybe in the world
uh suggested that we have our own IT
[2:39:35] guy. I think we had that discussion up
here on the dis and so um having that in
[2:39:40] the budget would would make sense cuz
it's something that I think that we need
[2:39:44] to move on
just to prevent or help prevent well I
[2:39:48] don't think we can ever prevent it with
AI now AI is just so powerful
[2:39:53] » I mean yeah I do want to state the fact
that we did incorporate an FTE for that
[2:39:57] in the 27 budget because we were
anticipating it it's has not been
[2:40:00] approved by the board yet but that is
important to know that's incorporated
[2:40:03] that it's been incorporated
>> perfect Okay. So, we're covering the
[2:40:06] things that I had concerns about and
then obviously the judicial system being
[2:40:11] backed up. How do we, you know, figure
that out? I mean, we got 600 people in
[2:40:17] jail and 30 people serving time and 570
waiting for trials. And I mean, what
[2:40:24] role do we play in with the new judges
thing? What role does the defender's
[2:40:28] office and the state's attorney's office
play in that role? Um, that's something
[2:40:33] we need to consider. Um it's just
unsustainable.
[2:40:38] So
>> Mr. Chair,
[2:40:40] » yes, Commissioner.
>> Yeah, hopefully I made a comment related
[2:40:43] to that. I believe the judge Linger and
I believe it's August 1st when kind of
[2:40:47] the new procedure
was kicking off in the court system with
[2:40:51] how they were handling those cases. So,
uh hoping that that's a win for
[2:40:55] everybody. I think it's a big big change
coordination between the state's
[2:41:00] attorney's office and everybody and the
public defenders office and judicial to
[2:41:05] try to get streamlining and a better
calendar timeline to get those cases
[2:41:11] through and adjudicated.
Um Jordan, could you go through and
[2:41:15] explain this slide?
>> All right. Yeah, this one was one we
[2:41:18] kind of put together a little bit in a
hurry there. Ken wanted to make sure
[2:41:21] that we looked at three things for the
last four years. And so we looked at
[2:41:25] what the budget was as adopted. That's
your darker blue there on the left. And
[2:41:28] then what the final budget was after all
the supplements went through. That's
[2:41:32] your green in the middle. And you'll see
the trend is that the actual
[2:41:35] expenditures are coming in in between
those two numbers. And the reason for
[2:41:39] that is that not all of the budgets that
had to get supplemented were expended
[2:41:45] fully. And so um some of it the budget
supplement was uh appropriate because
[2:41:50] say for example we had a project and we
didn't know what the cost was for a
[2:41:53] building project roof repair something
like that we then had to supplement that
[2:41:57] budget but elsewhere in the budget like
let's just say we didn't have a HR
[2:42:02] director for a couple months that year
that one was then underspent even though
[2:42:05] you had to supplement the general fund
by a certain amount. And so that's what
[2:42:09] we're seeing here is that you have to
supplement a budget so it doesn't go
[2:42:12] into the negative so it has all the
budget available for it. Um, but when
[2:42:16] you supplement that and underspend
others, we're hitting in between then
[2:42:20] what the actual final budget was after
it was supplemented and what was
[2:42:24] originally initially approved. And
that's kind of what what you see here.
[2:42:27] » So like 2025, we can actually
explain the differences there of the
[2:42:33] roughly 4.7 million or whatever 4.8
million with whatever it was. I mean, we
[2:42:39] we can if it was like something
>> is that the turn back cash at the end of
[2:42:43] the year that wasn't that wasn't spent.
Is that what's making your trend in the
[2:42:48] gray?
>> Not not always. Um yes, some but then
[2:42:52] others it
>> was restricted not used or unrestricted
[2:42:55] not used. I got that.
>> So yeah, basically it was either the
[2:42:58] budget was fully expended and it had to
be supplemented so it's not any cash
[2:43:01] back or some of those were definitely
giving some budget back. But as you can
[2:43:06] see, that gray is above that dark blue,
meaning that we spent more than we
[2:43:09] anticipated.
>> Building this building that could have
[2:43:12] been wasn't in the budget. That's what
we're trying to change right now is try
[2:43:15] to make some provisions in our budget.
>> Yeah, we're to not have this
[2:43:20] » correct.
>> We're trying to get an understanding as
[2:43:22] to what all of our expenditures are
going to be and not getting into doing
[2:43:26] supplements. So, in 2025, there was a
nearly $15 million supplement to 25's
[2:43:31] budget. And so if you look at what was
actually so go back to 22 and say that
[2:43:37] we budgeted and set a budget and said we
were going to spend 113 million uh we
[2:43:43] wound up spending 121 million. 23 we
budgeted 110 million we spent 116
[2:43:50] million. 24 we budgeted 120 million we
spent 128 million. And in 25 the budget
[2:43:58] was $126 and we spent $132.
So we were nearly $6 million over what
[2:44:06] we budgeted and expended in 2025.
And so that's why you know and again and
[2:44:13] I think we had it like in one of our
initial breakout but we have the
[2:44:18] accumulated building fund and we're
saying it's you know we're going to a
[2:44:21] million dollars. then we need to look
at, you know, what are the projects
[2:44:25] estimated to be expended in 27 to draw
that fund down. But if we have known
[2:44:31] expenditures and that's what you get
back into, but we can have these
[2:44:35] anomalies, but what my goal would be as
a commissioner is that we try to get
[2:44:41] down to uh you know, we're saying that
we're budgeting a certain amount, that
[2:44:46] we stay within that amount or under
that, that we're not supplementing
[2:44:49] unless some emergency comes up. And the
history has been we have known
[2:44:54] expenditures that we're not budgeting
for that come up and there's just budget
[2:44:58] supplements done in 2025 is a good
example of the one motion that was made
[2:45:03] that was nearly $15 million to
supplement a budget that was already
[2:45:07] approved.
And so what I would like to see getting
[2:45:11] back to I I mean I have a bunch of this
in my own notes but there are line items
[2:45:17] in the budget for 5year history unless
there's and some of those are pretty
[2:45:21] much a standout.
Unless [clears throat] there's an
[2:45:24] explanation as to why last year you know
for fiveyear average we're spending uh
[2:45:30] $20,000
but every year we've been budgeting
[2:45:34] $80,000 $100,000.
And if you're budgeting that amount the
[2:45:39] same, why aren't we closer to a
five-year average? And if we're off,
[2:45:43] then explain why we need to bump it up
this year. And uh there's a talking
[2:45:49] point uh on many of them. And so I mean
I would like to see [clears throat]
[2:45:55] some information on what you guys are
looking at of the budget and saying here
[2:46:00] is you know some anomalies that we think
and maybe get back to the department
[2:46:04] heads and say the your five years of
expenditures in this line item is
[2:46:10] $10,000 but you continually been
budgeting $50,000
[2:46:14] because I would like to find those
incremental savings in there knowing
[2:46:18] that we're not going to expend those
funds. historically though we budgeted
[2:46:22] for it because I think every dollar
needs to be accounted for so we can make
[2:46:27] smart decisions on the employee and the
personnel package and the HR stuff and
[2:46:32] say well if applied cash is 6 million
and we say we want applied cash at 2
[2:46:37] million in the general fund then getting
back to commissioner Hadcock's point
[2:46:42] then that puts us in a position of
saying well what are the priorities and
[2:46:46] let's go cut 4 million when we could
have the information to make good
[2:46:51] decisions about where we could get that
applied cash number down.
[2:46:55] » Chair.
[2:46:59] So,
okay. So, I've been here through all of
[2:47:03] what you're talking about plus more. So,
in 21 I got the weird part. The anomaly
[2:47:10] is COVID 19 2021. So, there's some weird
things going on there. Meaning, um could
[2:47:16] have been accounted for a little bit
differently. So those numbers were
[2:47:19] different. Um then you started bonding
and you started using that bonding for a
[2:47:25] for a cumulative building. Nothing to do
with our accumulative building person
[2:47:28] because he wasn't here but we started
using that bonding and it started
[2:47:32] changing the numbers. When you're seeing
a lot of that gray or basically trending
[2:47:38] higher, you got to remember from 22 to
25 there was some anomalies of
[2:47:44] 13,647,000
that was absorbed in these budgets for
[2:47:50] um raises.
So a lot of that going by line item by
[2:47:56] line item for people for me I get it. We
need to look at everything. But the
[2:48:02] anomaly was what was spent on giving
raises in that time that at shouldn't
[2:48:08] have been done at that kind of scale.
So a lot of this that you're seeing is
[2:48:15] wage differentials,
not just overspending of budgets or or
[2:48:20] counting everybody in these budgets as
department heads is, you know,
[2:48:26] um basically spending their line items
like they shouldn't. So the only thing
[2:48:31] that I was seeing the most of back then
was when you gave the ra ra ra ra ra ra
[2:48:36] ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra
ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra
[2:48:36] ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra raises, we
didn't know at the time, and to be fair
[2:48:38] to Ron and Gary at this point, we didn't
find out that it was 13,647
[2:48:43] because I kept asking the uh auditor,
what is those totals every year? Well,
[2:48:48] we already knew when you started having
4 million, 5 million um stuff like that
[2:48:54] that was going on in the last few years,
that was crazy.
[2:48:59] We also said two of us were on there
saying this is crazy what we're doing
[2:49:02] because we cannot absorb this. So now
we're starting to cut the 4% in the
[2:49:07] wages and other stuff. So I get where
you're going with some of this budget,
[2:49:10] but some of it um you know you're going
to have to look sensibly about some of
[2:49:18] that stuff that you don't have to
micromanage to a certain extent, but you
[2:49:23] also should look at the major numbers.
So some of that um I'm in agreement with
[2:49:28] and other things it's like okay we got
in control last year to a certain extent
[2:49:32] of the 8 million to try to cut some of
those excessive things that were going
[2:49:36] on with the wages. The buildings when
you're talking about the buildings um
[2:49:40] that didn't make us in in one sense it
didn't make it a deficit but it was
[2:49:45] using bonding money that shouldn't have
been used for other projects for
[2:49:49] buildings and grounds. They should have
had that in their budgets.
[2:49:54] So, I got that as well. The 5.4 was a
building we never were going to buy.
[2:49:59] This building was accounted for and some
of the bonding money if we include and
[2:50:04] then most of it was sheriff and then we
started doing the sheriff's money um for
[2:50:11] buying buildings.
So, when you see some of these numbers,
[2:50:14] you got to remember that when I was
telling you about the buildings and the
[2:50:18] um wages, those were huge differentials
on what's going on with those budgets
[2:50:23] from like 22 to to up till 26.
Some of it uh should have been done
[2:50:29] differently. Too late now. Now, we made
that difference. So, that's why I saying
[2:50:35] on the budgets, you trying to track it
to a certain extent and not knowing the
[2:50:38] history on some of this stuff, guys. um
not all the department heads were doing
[2:50:42] what what this anomaly is showing. A lot
of them held the line. Some of them did
[2:50:48] not and that's what caused some of that.
So how we move forward hopefully in a
[2:50:54] positive way is is to make sure that we
are making sure we have those services
[2:50:59] that we need for the future. Make sure
that self-funding is where it's supposed
[2:51:02] to be. And then um I'm going to be up
straight. I'm not against using CPI
[2:51:07] growth and and um some of that depending
on what those levies come in those areas
[2:51:13] and I'd like to know bottom line where
we have to cut if it's a certain area.
[2:51:17] You don't have to take 10 million off a
budget. What you need to do is come
[2:51:21] close to making it so it's balanced and
it's not causing the taxpayer where they
[2:51:25] go, "Okay, you just increase me $100
each blah blah blah for your levy,
[2:51:30] whatever." Um you can make the levy like
look good. They used to do the levy back
[2:51:35] in the day, make the levy look like they
weren't raising the taxes
[2:51:40] then. I don't think the people
understood that in the first place they
[2:51:42] were. They just made it look like the
levy was low and they weren't doing
[2:51:46] anything. So, I don't want to play that
game either. So, thank you.
[2:51:49] » So, Jordan, so I guess on September
17th, we need to have a um this needs to
[2:51:56] be like close to the end of the
conversations on where we're going here.
[2:52:00] Yep. So, I just want to make sure the
commission understands that if you need
[2:52:05] if you if they have some direction that
they want to give you, let's be explicit
[2:52:10] about it. Let's be to the point and uh
let's get there on 17th. So,
[2:52:16] Commissioner Dur.
>> Yeah, I'm just going to say what I would
[2:52:18] like to look at. I mean, I have my own
numbers here, but I'd like the
[2:52:21] information coming from the commission
office. uh the five-year average of some
[2:52:26] of those expenditures, just Jordan
mentioned one of them, but I mean it
[2:52:29] adds up to hundreds of thousands of
dollars. And I would just rather get
[2:52:33] down to a true accounting and saying
this is what we believe we're going to
[2:52:37] expend for five years. We have we have a
line item of 50 grand and we haven't
[2:52:40] spent it in five years. And I would just
like the comfort level because it comes
[2:52:45] down to and again if we if we don't have
to continually tax more from the
[2:52:50] taxpayers to balance a budget because
the bal the budget continually increases
[2:52:55] uh that's a lot of what our taxpayers
are upset about the fact that an owner
[2:52:59] occupied since 2022 or 2020 has gone up
40%. And so, and again, we've, you know,
[2:53:09] we heard it this morning. It's not
popular with everybody, but you know, we
[2:53:13] passed the sales tax and hopefully that
will, you know, offset,
[2:53:17] you know, in the future. We'll see how
that works out to offset some of the
[2:53:22] property tax burden, but the majority of
our services, and again, it's a, you
[2:53:27] know, you look at where the revenue is
coming in, it's what the county has to
[2:53:30] rely upon as property tax. And uh uh now
we'll look at a sales tax opportunity.
[2:53:37] And the other talking point in there too
is you go back and look at the revenue
[2:53:42] and the sheriff's office through you
know the marshalss and different things.
[2:53:47] In fact that hit one of your top 10.
>> It did. uh the revenue coming in on some
[2:53:52] of the contracts and agreements we have
through public safety, you know, is a
[2:53:56] benefit to the organization and
offsetting offsetting some of those
[2:53:59] operational costs. And uh and again
getting back to what was echoed this
[2:54:05] morning, you know, from Mr. Mueller
about looking at uh you know some of
[2:54:10] those things that we have agreements and
contracts in place and this is you know
[2:54:14] something that we're working on but is
it the bang for the buck to make sure
[2:54:18] that we're just not providing a service
under an agreement that is not
[2:54:22] beneficial to the organization or the
taxpayers. So anyway it's some of those
[2:54:26] because I you know and again I'm not
even though the levy goes down because
[2:54:30] our growth has increased we're still
collecting more tax revenue. So, uh, and
[2:54:36] the other thing I do know like in some
of the budgets and I'd mentioned it and
[2:54:41] I can, you know, I would like to look at
and we won't have it done, but the
[2:54:45] departments that are looking at getting
brand new vehicles in 27 outside of
[2:54:49] public safety,
uh, I only know of one or I only know of
[2:54:54] a couple that have popped out, but I
would like to know what those capital p
[2:54:58] capital expenditures are and uh, because
I believe we do have enough vehicles in
[2:55:04] the county. So,
>> Commissioner Dur, can you um make sure
[2:55:08] you get those explicitly to to Jordan
and he can share them and he can pass
[2:55:13] those out to anybody that
>> you want to be included in public
[2:55:16] safety?
>> I I was just going to ask the question.
[2:55:18] We have a 10-year replacement plan that
we've been proceeding with for the last
[2:55:22] several years. I just wanted to confirm
that we are good to to continue.
[2:55:26] » Are you talking about equipment or you
talking about new vehicles?
[2:55:28] » So, our our vehicles are included in
that. Um, in 2027, I believe our plan
[2:55:33] only includes um shop pick or a service
vehicle that uh is replacing a 2003
[2:55:41] or 2004 with over 200,000 miles on it
that is in desperate need of
[2:55:45] replacement. So, that's included in next
year's I would be
[2:55:50] if you get a memo from Jordan, you'll
know and so just attack it at that
[2:55:54] moment. What I would like to see is just
all the those capital but basically
[2:55:58] vehicles that are being purchased. So we
have an un so I have an understanding
[2:56:01] and the rest of the commission does is
why and uh because I and again I think
[2:56:06] it would help to have that information
knowing you know what our fleet
[2:56:11] management is going to be and uh you
know I know that that's another project
[2:56:16] in the pipeline to work on fleet
management trying to have some shared
[2:56:21] resources across different departments
and I'm talking about some of the
[2:56:26] smaller departments in the county not
the larger ones Okay. I will I believe
[2:56:31] we have our equipment purchase plan. So
if we don't, we'll get it from it. So
[2:56:36] » yeah,
>> Commissioner Hadco.
[2:56:38] » So if you're going to make changes to
the budget or touch people's budgets as
[2:56:42] um we have done in the past for
provisional or otherwise, we want to
[2:56:46] make sure that we're communicating to
those departments where we're switching
[2:56:50] things. And I know you're doing that
this week, Jordan. Thank you very much.
[2:56:53] Kenner, but um before you make the
changes, that communication should be
[2:56:58] done, whether it's Jerry's direction, my
direction, or anybody's direction. You
[2:57:02] need to communicate with the department
head where you're going before you put
[2:57:05] it up here on the DIS. So, it's not
like, okay, holy crap, what did you do
[2:57:10] or where the changes? Cuz I know with uh
some of sheriff stuff, we talked about
[2:57:15] that that that's why you're meeting with
him is because his understanding was
[2:57:18] this and our understanding for his
budget. So then he was starting all over
[2:57:22] again on some of his stuff trying to
figure it out. So remember um that
[2:57:27] communication, we are the budget people.
I got it. But that communication with
[2:57:31] your department heads so they know how
to figure out their budgets or if they
[2:57:35] think 50,000 that's been in there for
two years for some reason or whatever or
[2:57:40] whatever we're going. I get cut some of
that stuff. But um I'd like [snorts]
[2:57:44] some communication. And it doesn't have
to be um what uh 80some areas that we
[2:57:52] have to go and discuss up here. There
should be a discussion with you and them
[2:57:56] and by the time you're done you'll
probably narrow it down to 30. So just
[2:58:00] to make sure that's happening in the
future. So um again um I like to make
[2:58:06] sure that our depart um our department
heads and I'll just tell you I've
[2:58:11] watched it. team and you've seen it. Um
that they have uh true discussions and
[2:58:16] then when they're talking with their
budgets or whatever, even with you on
[2:58:20] some of that stuff, that those concerns
are getting met um and related to us
[2:58:24] because it's it's huge when we have 17
departments helping us run an
[2:58:29] organization and then five are elected.
So all that [snorts] makes a huge
[2:58:33] difference if you could do those changes
and and in a hopefully in a good way so
[2:58:38] they have time to look at look at it not
have to explain each one of them why you
[2:58:42] should keep it in there. Thank you.
>> Any other commissioner have anything
[2:58:45] they want to look into on the on the
>> Yeah. Melissa
[2:58:50] » Melissa
>> then I want to speak to
[2:58:54] get to you too brother.
>> Yep.
[2:59:00] that commissioner dur.
>> So I know that uh your department and
[2:59:04] again yeah happy to finally have an HR
director you know on the team and it's
[2:59:10] not like uh you don't have anything to
do.
[2:59:14] So the uh there's a couple of things
that you know I think we could hammer
[2:59:20] that out in the discussion because again
a lot of the handbook and the employee
[2:59:24] handbook ties to county expenditures.
Uh but getting back to these open
[2:59:30] positions, I believe it was in June when
a report was ran and at that point in
[2:59:35] time we had 84 positions at a snapshot
in time that you know were open and then
[2:59:42] looking at historically what those open
positions have been and that's what I
[2:59:47] would like to see for the 17th and
between Jordan and Ken having some of
[2:59:52] the information. I think some of it came
from your office on historical stuff and
[2:59:57] gathering that and the sheriff stepped
forward and said, you know, I'm going to
[3:00:02] we had that discussion. I'm going to
offer these positions. I'm going to make
[3:00:05] these cuts. And that was the only
department that came forward. And so I
[3:00:10] would like to see what those uh
positions historically have been and
[3:00:13] open and getting back to it because I do
know that we do batch hiring. And so
[3:00:19] specifically in the public safety sector
to include the state's attorney's office
[3:00:24] saying, you know, I have to wait until
August, you know, to uh when they get
[3:00:29] out of school and graduate and then come
into the office on and where sheriff's
[3:00:35] office looks at, you know, because of uh
recruiting and training in that timeline
[3:00:41] and doing batch hiring on some of those
positions
[3:00:44] uh that we look at. Is there an
opportunity outside of the 4% that we've
[3:00:50] we did? Is there an opportunity to look
at some of those vacant positions?
[3:00:55] Specifically, if we're funding 100% and
we know that every year, you know, we're
[3:01:00] not filling those positions until, you
know, midyear, 3/4 year, etc. So,
[3:01:07] » I can I can get that for you guys.
>> All right. Thank you.
[3:01:12] » Thank you, Melissa.
>> Yeah. Um,
[3:01:16] » Mr. Chair,
>> Mr.
[3:01:18] » So, Jordan, we were uh talking about
outside agencies and one of them is
[3:01:23] Pennington County Council of Aging and
their request for 10,000 for Prairie
[3:01:27] Hills Transit
7,144 for uh basically be supplies for
[3:01:34] independent for seniors that are living
independent that the Department of Human
[3:01:38] Services can't get reimbursed for. So,
uh, is would this be the time to kind of
[3:01:45] talk about that meeting that you had
that I had an MO meeting that I couldn't
[3:01:50] go to both? We we certainly could. Um,
so the direction I kind of gave uh at
[3:01:55] the time was that we would either
discuss it on September 1st or September
[3:01:59] 17th. And since there was another
outside agency uh the the Rapid City
[3:02:03] Public Library that we were going to
deal with, I was going to kind of get
[3:02:06] all that information together for the
17th if that
[3:02:09] » and that's fine. I just want to touch
base on
[3:02:12] » uh there were some questions on you know
payments in the last two years for uh
[3:02:16] transportation. That's one of our
>> uh goals is to pro provide
[3:02:21] transportation for the senior population
in Penton County. So I'll just go over
[3:02:25] this real quick.
>> Absolutely.
[3:02:28] So, Prairie Hills Transit, we had a
check for 625
[3:02:33] uh January of 24 and then February of 24
another check for 625
[3:02:42] and uh three of 25 check for 625 the
Prairie Hills Transit
[3:02:49] and in three of 24 Prairie Hills uh
Rapid Transit. Uh and we also uh provide
[3:02:57] senior transportation in Rapid City uh
to the two rapid transit that was for
[3:03:02] 5,647.
Then Prairie Hills Transit again on 24
[3:03:07] for 1,500.
Uh 24 another check to Prairie Hills
[3:03:13] Transit for 4,125.
And then in 19 or in 2025 we gave
[3:03:20] Prairie Hills Transit a check for
10,000.
[3:03:24] And in 19 or 2025,
another check to Rapid Transit for
[3:03:31] 5,310. And then February of this year,
we wrote a check the Perry Hills
[3:03:36] transfer per 10,000.
So, you know, historically, those are
[3:03:41] the checks that we have written uh for
transportation for the needs of the
[3:03:47] senior population living in Pennington
County. Another thing that we mentioned,
[3:03:51] yeah, Gary Jerry was concerned, do we
have some money in a checkin count that
[3:03:57] was left over the way that we operated
before? And we do. We do. I think as of
[3:04:02] the meeting that you had there was about
$18,000
[3:04:05] in that account and their request for
this year would be 17,144
[3:04:11] that would be for combination of
transportation and needs for these
[3:04:17] seniors uh for their independent living.
Uh
[3:04:21] so
when we mention why do you want to keep
[3:04:27] some money in your account because now
the process is it it's a lengthy process
[3:04:32] to come before the commission and ask
for funds. And one of the things that we
[3:04:38] could pride ourselves in the past is
that one of the senior centers could
[3:04:43] call up and say our freezer went out and
we just don't have the funds to replace
[3:04:48] it or our oven went out for. So those
emergency funds were used for those type
[3:04:54] of purposes.
And so just a an overview of some of
[3:05:00] those examples would be
uh Keystone Senior Center. Uh they had a
[3:05:07] emergency roof repair which we covered
and then uh a year later there was some
[3:05:13] additional
leaking and you know just something that
[3:05:17] needed to get done and this is the type
of stuff that we could sit there and
[3:05:20] write write a check to make that happen.
Then the Menaoosa on senior centers
[3:05:26] their refrigerate re refrigerator went
out their freezer. So you know we're
[3:05:31] able to sit there and write a check uh
once we got the approval from the
[3:05:35] committee
and then we uh Keystone Senior Center uh
[3:05:41] a stove and I can go on and on. So the
checks that we have written in the in
[3:05:46] the last
seven years that I've been involved has
[3:05:50] either been for transportation
emergency
[3:05:54] situations, freezers, stoves, and
whatnot. Meals on wheels. We used to
[3:06:00] write a number of checks for that uh
last year. I don't believe we've written
[3:06:04] any checks to that capacity.
All I'm saying is that we would like to
[3:06:10] I I believe keep 5 to10 thou or5 to
$8,000 in that account which will never
[3:06:15] be replenished. Once it's gone, it's
gone for emergency services. So I just
[3:06:19] want to make that
aware to the other commissioners as we
[3:06:23] move forward uh on outside agencies.
Thank you, Commissioner Ross Connect.
[3:06:28] Any other comments from here?
>> Yep. Commissioner,
[3:06:32] » just about the library. Um, Ker and I
met with the li library board and Laura
[3:06:36] Armstrong and uh bottom line we came up
with the 320
[3:06:41] um in agreement which I understood but I
think they also asked why didn't we have
[3:06:46] a vote yet on the library and I think
that's something I don't know how long
[3:06:50] that takes to organize or if I need to
work with Jordan to look at that about
[3:06:54] how we move forward that's setting up um
a vote on the library with the outlining
[3:06:59] areas. I think that's a smart idea. That
way we can also see what that levy needs
[3:07:04] to be and if uh I'm not into and this
year we were going to pay general fund
[3:07:08] because we didn't think real hard or I
didn't about the 80,000 that we'd end up
[3:07:13] paying and how much people not only in
the outlining but the city also that
[3:07:18] help pay. So um what I told them is the
give and take with the city and the
[3:07:23] county on areas that we pay and they
pay. I also believe that when you have a
[3:07:27] donnut hole around 20,000 people
basically, that's what I'm guesstimating
[3:07:32] at this point because it used to be
20,000 I don't know a year or two ago in
[3:07:36] um Rapid Valley that how much did they
could contribute for everything else
[3:07:40] being that close basically their city.
So, um, us the county is paying about I
[3:07:47] don't know how many people are in in
that area, but we're paying basically
[3:07:51] their library cards when, um, there
should be something different in that
[3:07:55] three mile limit when you don't want to,
um, or even the mile limit when you
[3:07:59] don't want to annex them in because of
infrastructure or other stuff. Well, um,
[3:08:05] we're taking care of those areas and ask
the highway department in some of those
[3:08:08] areas as well when that doesn't annex in
for drainage and other stuff. So, um,
[3:08:14] long story short, she asked, and that
was Miss Terry, why didn't you give us
[3:08:18] the 40,000 more difference? I said,
because at this point, the 320, um, a
[3:08:24] lot of us thought out of four of us
thought that that was pretty fair. And
[3:08:27] based on the numbers uh Kenner ran um we
thought maybe even a little bit lower,
[3:08:32] but um
[3:08:37] our bottom line was um they were going
to come and they said could we ask for
[3:08:42] higher said you can ask for whatever you
want at this point but it looked like
[3:08:46] four votes for at least 320. I don't
know if that's going to happen on the
[3:08:49] 17th. We told them I just could say at
my I'm one of uh five that at the 320
[3:08:55] it's good but I would be looking to try
to do that boat to see if [snorts] the
[3:08:59] county residents still wanted it. I also
wanted to know how many people if we
[3:09:03] could find out in Rapid Valley that use
it because again if there's 35 40,000
[3:09:08] people in the outlining areas and Box
Elder didn't pay as well as you know
[3:09:13] some of that um there's going to be
something that needs to be changed and
[3:09:16] that would be huge if we did the vote
and then included anybody that needed to
[3:09:20] pay for it for that library at that
point to make it fair and just
[3:09:24] throughout the outlining areas. Um, also
if you think about it, and I'll keep
[3:09:29] saying it, they've been paying for, um,
ambulance services for over 25 years.
[3:09:34] So, um, I was willing to like do that
give and take for, um, the general fund
[3:09:40] on this point, but I'd like to know how
we get that vote move forward and then
[3:09:45] I'll probably come to you Jordan for
some conversation or if you send me to
[3:09:48] the auditor
>> and then bring that forward to the
[3:09:51] board. Thank you.
Any
[3:09:55] other comments or are you Kerry, did you
have a comment or no? Okay, Jordan. Um,
[3:10:03] where do we go from here?
>> Well, um, did you guys want to make any
[3:10:07] motions on anything within the budget
right now? Because if not, then the next
[3:10:09] thing that we would want to do is to set
by motion uh, the continuation of
[3:10:13] consideration of the provisional budget
to the September 17th.
[3:10:16] » I just want the commission to have a
good feel for what's going to happen
[3:10:19] mean between now and the 17th. and that
is that there's some things that Jerry
[3:10:23] wanted you to look at that you would
communicate to all of us.
[3:10:26] » Yes.
>> Okay. Some of the policy things there
[3:10:29] one thing we were working on was the
contracts. I don't know if that's going
[3:10:31] to affect the budget or not. So like
with all the copers, all that type of
[3:10:35] stuff.
>> I'll touch base with it again on those
[3:10:37] just to see where we're at with that. If
we've got any numbers that we could
[3:10:40] present of potential savings to the
budget.
[3:10:42] » Okay. Um Mr. Chair.
>> Yes. Commissioner Ross.
[3:10:45] » Yeah. The only other thing is that uh
the Hill City Library Board has reached
[3:10:50] out to me and Jordan and we've told them
that uh we've we've kind of told them
[3:10:55] they're they're kind of asking, you
know, like where are we at? So, we've
[3:10:59] given them just as much information as
we can at this point. And I I think it
[3:11:03] was basically where we're at for 2027 is
somewhere
[3:11:09] uh the same amount that they got for
2026.
[3:11:13] » Yes. And to clarify that point, um,
essentially if you guys decide to
[3:11:17] increase levies by growth in CPI or
whatever you end up doing, it's going to
[3:11:21] increase the library levy unless you
specifically say it won't. And any of
[3:11:24] that increase then could be added into
the contracts as well and kind of offset
[3:11:28] some of the funding that they're getting
because we I I believe it's still the
[3:11:31] board's intention not to have a
remaining fund balance in these
[3:11:34] restricted funds when we're supposed to
be paying for these services. And so we
[3:11:37] don't want to maintain a fund balance.
We want to pay it to directly to the
[3:11:40] entities with whom we contract.
>> Sure. So chair, can I ask a question? So
[3:11:44] on the library, we can increase the
levies
[3:11:47] » 427 also to offset some of that 320 and
that whatever we do in Hill City,
[3:11:53] Keystone and
>> Yes.
[3:11:54] » Okay. So you'll bring that forward how
we do that.
[3:11:56] » Yep.
>> Yeah, that one. Yes, that that's part of
[3:11:58] the resolution. Basically, you list the
funds, you list the library fund, the
[3:12:01] county consolidated, and you say what
you want to set the max tax at. But I'll
[3:12:05] have the auditor help me with those
numbers to make sure that we've got all
[3:12:07] the valuations, the levies, everything
>> and what those numbers mean. And what
[3:12:11] same with like where we're at with if
you guys are at four or three or two or
[3:12:16] whatever on those levies, what's that
tax increase? Thank you,
[3:12:19] » Jordan. Is it fair to say that we'll
have consideration to do with some of
[3:12:23] the the items that Commissioner was
asked about, the ones that are ongoing
[3:12:27] that we're not meeting? And then the uh
vehicles.
[3:12:31] » Yes.
>> Purchase of new vehicles. Do we need
[3:12:34] those vehicles? That conversation has to
happen in between a little bit. Yep. Um,
[3:12:40] oh no, I just slipped my mind the other.
>> Yeah, I'll be meeting with the
[3:12:44] individual departments again just to try
to make sure that if we've got any
[3:12:47] questions on those budgets because to
Commissioner Dur and Commissioner
[3:12:50] Hadcock's point, um, we've been meeting
with them. Uh, Commissioner Hadcock and
[3:12:54] Kenner met with them once, asked about,
hey, I'm seeing a trend here. And then
[3:12:58] some of them wrote written responses,
some of them just gave us verbal
[3:13:00] responses. I will compile all the
information that we've gotten from them
[3:13:04] communicating what their budgets were
were changing and and uh what what
[3:13:08] that's going to look like for the
>> commission needs to look at growth CPI
[3:13:12] bank CPI and see where that fits into
what we're doing here.
[3:13:15] » Um
so another item I can't
[3:13:20] recall
oh we need to figure out how to at least
[3:13:24] expose our our contingencies on
liabilities that may happen. at least
[3:13:29] have a footnote somewhere that says this
is what we have. I mean, I don't think
[3:13:33] it's very appropriate not to have that
listed somewhere. So, at least having a
[3:13:38] footnote that if this happens and then
we can relook at that policy,
[3:13:43] » you know, more questions here
>> forward. So,
[3:13:46] » so do we what do we do with the 600,000
for cyber stuff that we have to absorb?
[3:13:52] Are we doing a I think I asked you
yesterday and some of it's give and take
[3:13:55] because some of their contracts aren't
going to be there and stuff,
[3:13:58] » right?
>> So, what's that going to do for our
[3:14:01] budget? Are they doing it this year or
next year?
[3:14:04] » See that? I'll have to get with Mike on
that one. I I'll get with it to make
[3:14:07] sure exactly whether or not that's going
to be impacting this year's budget as
[3:14:10] well as or if some of it's going to be
grant funded and what that all looks
[3:14:13] like. So, I'll I'll try to get that
ready for the 17th as well.
[3:14:16] » I appreciate that.
>> Jordan, also just on another note
[3:14:20] and the Our emails are ready for the
commissions. I haven't gotten mine up,
[3:14:25] but it will I'll work on getting that
going. So, if any other commissioner has
[3:14:29] an email or they want the email on their
phone, I think Mike will make that
[3:14:33] available for them. Uh we're slowly
[clears throat] getting back up to par.
[3:14:38] It's it's a lengthy long and lengthy
process and and when you go through this
[3:14:42] process, you start to question whether
you know, are we approaching it
[3:14:45] correctly or are we not approaching it
correctly? And I'll reiterate the same
[3:14:49] fact that we've had conversations with
some of the best cyber security people
[3:14:55] probably in the world that live right
here in our community, which has been
[3:14:59] absolutely fabulous. They say we're
heading in the right direction and I
[3:15:03] understand everybody wants to have a
priority. I get that. And so don't be
[3:15:07] concerned if you're a department head or
whatever and you feel that way. You
[3:15:10] should feel that way. So and and
sometimes things get missed. So, um,
[3:15:16] contact Jordan or myself and we'll try
to help figure out another priority to
[3:15:20] help you get where you're going and
just, you know, but don't don't sit back
[3:15:25] and wait for another entity to answer
your question. That was one thing we
[3:15:30] found out that was probably a weakness
in our in our operation now is that we
[3:15:34] were waiting on the city to make
decisions when they had no reason not to
[3:15:38] just make that decision that day. And so
we'd spent weeks waiting for a a call
[3:15:44] back or something, you know, and so if
you're experiencing that, get a hold of
[3:15:48] Jordan or or just assert yourself. We'll
we'll stand behind you. Um, so but we I
[3:15:55] think the sheriff put it in a good
nutshell for us that there's a lot of
[3:15:59] opportunity for us to
>> we've never I mean I don't think anybody
[3:16:03] in the state of South Dakota had um had
the same situation we've had, but the
[3:16:08] the the mass amount of servers and and
and frontline connections that we have
[3:16:14] to make is incredible. Once you start
realizing that, you can see where the
[3:16:18] massive uh time frame has to happen.
It'll probably be months upon months
[3:16:23] before we can come back with a end of
action report that says here's what
[3:16:28] happened, here's what we found, and
here's what we'll do moving forward. So,
[3:16:34] just keep that in mind and and you know,
run your operation and and but don't
[3:16:38] just sit back and let things happen.
Assert yourselves if you need to. Um, we
[3:16:43] understand that. So,
>> Cody, you have
[3:16:47] » Mr. Chair.
>> Yes, Commissioner Dur.
[3:16:49] » Yeah, one more note. He actually
reminded me of it. Uh, Sheriff Miller.
[3:16:54] Mueller.
[3:16:59] » Brian, thanks for coming forward.
[3:17:05] » So, Camp Rapid Dispatch Center.
>> Yes.
[3:17:11] » The dollars that are required to get
that to be independent.
[3:17:17] » Do we know what Do we have an idea what
that would take? I don't have that
[3:17:20] dollar amount.
>> Okay. Could you guys work on Could you
[3:17:24] guys work on that and get a dollar
amount as to what it would take to get
[3:17:28] to
the Camp Rapid facility independent?
[3:17:33] » Yes.
>> I think Kevin's working on that.
[3:17:36] » Oh, there he is.
>> Hey, Kevin.
[3:17:41] » And we had this conversation once. But
go ahead and commissioner Dur's asking
[3:17:45] what it's going to take to to finish off
the independence of C Rapids.
[3:17:50] » It came up in discussions that it was
previous
[3:17:54] no one there were previous discussions
where the dollars did not want to be put
[3:17:58] into the budget to get that facility
independent.
[3:18:02] » Okay. Well, yes, I understand that. I
can I can address that for you. So what
[3:18:08] we were talking about is the backup CAD
server, not a backup system for Camp
[3:18:15] Rapid. So the backup, we have a main CAD
server and a backup CAD server. We have
[3:18:20] those. It's a shared server with the
highway patrol or sheriff's office,
[3:18:23] police department. So when we were
talking about moving the backup server
[3:18:27] to Camp Rapid, that was just the CAD
server, which wouldn't have affected any
[3:18:31] of the any other county networks. and
our CAD server actually stayed up um
[3:18:36] through this whole outage. We've had a
CAD server. Now, if we're speaking about
[3:18:39] putting the backup center on an entirely
separate county network um or entire
[3:18:45] separate network so that it's always up
regardless what happens to the county
[3:18:49] network.
>> Correct.
[3:18:50] » Okay. That's a conversation that I have
to have with Mike and he's not quite
[3:18:53] there yet because his hands are full um
dealing with his other things. So that's
[3:18:57] more of an IT driven type thing than it
is uh something a conversation that I
[3:19:03] can I can drive. So we're not quite
ready to have that conversation yet, but
[3:19:08] I definitely think it's something that
we need to to look at.
[3:19:11] » All right. And I would just ask that
Jordan, could you take the lead on
[3:19:15] trying to work with those indivi
individuals to get what that dollar
[3:19:20] amount is because it came up that uh you
know without getting into everything
[3:19:24] that uh it would have been nice to have
that functional. [snorts]
[3:19:28] » Yeah. And and we kept most of our
functionality throughout this. Um the
[3:19:35] the biggest challenge we had was we lost
our our connectivity to the NCIC and the
[3:19:40] state actually shut that switch off and
I'm not sure that having it on a
[3:19:43] separate network would have prevented
that but by all means we definitely need
[3:19:47] need to pursue that that possibility. I
agree 100%.
[3:19:51] » All right. Thanks.
>> That's definitely will be something in
[3:19:54] our end of action report is how we
approach that conversation. But I found
[3:19:59] that uh a lot of the programs that the
department heads and and elected
[3:20:04] officials work on or interacted with
third parties and some of the third
[3:20:08] parties have you know they got a
different priority than we do. So we we
[3:20:13] have to assert ourselves in those
positions to say you know we're a
[3:20:16] priority moving forward. So, um, but
that being said, we, you know,
[3:20:21] definitely have a lot of opportunity
there and and a lot of strengths, too.
[3:20:25] I, you know, so there there's a lot of
kudos to be had for some of the things
[3:20:29] that took place, too. So, and we'll have
those discussions, but uh, um, I Jordan,
[3:20:35] is there more that you got to add to
this or, um, so are you getting a good
[3:20:40] idea where we want to be on the 17th?
And then if something comes up in
[3:20:44] between commission, just contact Jordan
and Jordan will contact anybody who's
[3:20:48] involved in that decision or or
something comes up from the department
[3:20:51] heads or somebody, they can contact
Jordan, make sure we get the notes. So
[3:20:55] when we come here on the 17th, we're
we're clear-headed and we have a really
[3:20:59] good idea of what we need to look at and
make some some good decisions on. So,
[3:21:04] um,
>> and just as a a note on the timeline,
[3:21:08] basically we typically try to have the
agenda live the Wednesday before a
[3:21:12] Tuesday meeting, but because this
meeting is going to be on September
[3:21:15] 17th, which is a Thursday, we're going
to take most of next week. And so, we
[3:21:19] won't publish the meeting. Won't make
the agenda live until probably about
[3:21:21] Friday. Um, that'll give us a little bit
more time to coordinate with more of the
[3:21:25] departments to try to gather all the
information we have because it would
[3:21:28] have been a little bit difficult to kind
of get everything that we're looking to
[3:21:30] change and everything that we want
updated by next Wednesday. But luckily
[3:21:33] with an extra couple few days, we should
be able to gather and and communicate as
[3:21:37] much as we possibly can.
>> No. And sometimes that needed
[3:21:40] flexibility comes in handy. So um
>> so Mr. Chair,
[3:21:45] » yes, Commissioner.
>> So Jordan, one of the things that I
[3:21:48] think the minutes probably reflected
motions that we have made on the
[3:21:51] provisional budget. Um but will that be
upgraded so that we'll be able to see?
[3:21:57] » Yes.
>> Okay.
[3:21:58] » Yep. I'm going to have the the the full
changes from provisional. I didn't think
[3:22:02] I'd need it today because I didn't think
we were going to approve the final. But
[3:22:05] I will absolutely have that of by
department, by fund, everywhere that we
[3:22:08] have to make changes within the budget
and unfortunately because of personnel,
[3:22:12] it's going to be most budgets are going
to be impacted.
[3:22:15] » Thank you.
>> That's a that's a good point to to be
[3:22:19] made.
>> Yes, there is an executive.
[3:22:21] » Okay. So, um
>> but I would ask that the board make a
[3:22:25] motion to continue the consideration of
the budget. Got it up on the screen
[3:22:28] there.
>> That' be my motion.
[3:22:31] Second. Have
>> a motion from Hancock, second by Dur to
[3:22:33] continue to September 17th. Is that
correct? All in favor say I. I.
[3:22:38] » I.
>> 2026.
[3:22:41] » 2026. Okay. Then we're we go to um item
17. Is that correct? Updates from
[3:22:48] commissioners.
>> Dur Drew. Durr your first nothing.
[3:22:51] Drews.
>> Uh yeah, just a quick one. uh attended
[3:22:54] the complete health uh board meeting
last Thursday
[3:22:59] and [clears throat] they um they
continue to see you know as many
[3:23:03] patients as they have capacity to do
with the ultimate goal of keeping
[3:23:08] patients healthier between visits uh and
out of higher care uh higher cost care
[3:23:14] which I interpret to be outside
emergency rooms. So, uh, continues to
[3:23:19] work for our benefit, uh, relative to
these. They deal with a lot of, uh,
[3:23:24] poverty-stricken, uh, individuals, uh,
through their clinic and, um,
[3:23:31] they they do a great job.
>> I've heard and I've heard good comments
[3:23:34] about that. So, Gary, I was going to ask
you a question because you seem to be
[3:23:37] the resident expert about how we
transition into the half cent sales tax.
[3:23:44] How does can you give us a little bit
short explanation for the audience maybe
[3:23:47] if you could or
>> Sure. Sure. So, so we've adopted it. Uh
[3:23:53] I I don't know if the the 20 I think the
20 days is probably passed at this point
[3:23:58] in time. So, it's uh we're moving
forward. So, we will notify the South
[3:24:04] Dakota Department of Revenue that we've
adopted it that we planned on
[3:24:08] proceeding. That collection then will
begin in January. uh that it'll start
[3:24:15] taking place. Uh as we as we as a
commission adopted it, uh we we did not
[3:24:22] choose to start paying out in 2027.
Uh we chose to give it the year so we
[3:24:31] know exactly how many dollars will come
in uh before that is distributed out to
[3:24:37] the uh property tax payers. Okay. Uh
just again a reminder, not one penny of
[3:24:44] that sales tax comes to the county for
other use. It's total replacement of
[3:24:50] property tax.
>> The scary part is the is the state going
[3:24:54] downstairs in the basement and counting
it and coming back up and said, "Here's
[3:24:57] your share."
>> Yes. Commissioner Ross.
[3:25:00] » So Gary, uh relative to Senate Bill 245,
when would that take effect? I I I
[3:25:06] believe that that uh takes effect uh
>> January 1st.
[3:25:10] » No, I think that takes effect. I don't
know. I think it's I think it's July one
[3:25:15] next year, I think.
>> Okay. So,
[3:25:18] u in a year from now, people in
Pennington County should see some pretty
[3:25:23] significant tax relief.
>> I mean, in in 28.
[3:25:28] » Yep. Starting in 28. Yes.
[3:25:34] We'll we'll weigh with baited breath.
Huh? Okay. Um, Commissioner Hackcock,
[3:25:39] you're next. Um,
>> fair. I went to the first meeting and
[3:25:43] then I didn't feel sick. I felt kind of
yucky, so I went to the demolition derby
[3:25:47] and then we had a meeting on Monday
about what was all happening and then I
[3:25:51] started feeling not very well. So, I
didn't I missed a bunch of the
[3:25:55] opportunity to go to the different fair
events this year, but sounds like they
[3:25:59] were really good. I let people use my
passes that don't usually get a go or
[3:26:03] people that were egg that wanted to
really go, but uh some people were the
[3:26:07] main main issue was that $15 parking. Uh
that was an issue and then some of the
[3:26:13] prices. So um yep, the vents I heard
were amazing. I heard the uh my husband
[3:26:19] and my maintenance guy went to Dallas
went to the um Bron the the national
[3:26:25] final one that they put on. Um it's it
was pretty amazing. The fireworks they
[3:26:31] said just kept going on and on and then
the public were just amazed. So that was
[3:26:35] pretty cool. Um Penny County Housing,
we're moving forward on that rad
[3:26:40] conversion. So that section 8 housing
stuff that we're going to do instead of
[3:26:44] the public uh housing. The difference is
on section 8 instead of just giving them
[3:26:49] a house on public housing, it's based on
your income. So you can do a little bit
[3:26:54] more with that. So we're buying two
properties right now. We already have
[3:26:58] bought one. Um I don't know if I could
tell you which one that is right now.
[3:27:01] And we're in the second one. We'll turn
around some areas in the north side.
[3:27:07] It's going to make a huge difference,
let alone for health and human services
[3:27:11] and others. Uh Alex can probably um
attest to this because that's what he
[3:27:16] does for a living and I kind of see it
through what I do for a living. So um
[3:27:21] it's going to be huge for Rapid City and
the surrounding area and Pennington
[3:27:24] County. um what we're doing um it also
is going to include VASH um we've had
[3:27:30] some major VASH issues trying to get
people with um um housing and hopefully
[3:27:36] with me county and um Alex can probably
tell you more about that. He's he's
[3:27:41] pretty expert on the veteran stuff. Um
it's going to be huge how we're going to
[3:27:46] help the veterans as well. So that was
kind of our goal in the long run when I
[3:27:50] started this as well is to get some
veteran housing for two, three, and four
[3:27:53] bedrooms because we didn't really have
any in Pennington County. So a lot of
[3:27:58] them couldn't get help or even the
reduced uh difference on that bash from
[3:28:02] that. So it's going to be huge. But I'm
pretty excited. We have amazing CEO and
[3:28:07] amazing board. Um and again, we added
Alex and we have some other people from
[3:28:12] uh Elevate, Laura, and then Mr. Maine
who's been in the Teton Coalition. So,
[3:28:17] with that uh team and his team, um he
runs a pretty tight ship over there as a
[3:28:24] CEO. Um really knows his stuff. Anyway,
can't say enough about uh Penny's County
[3:28:29] Housing and uh he already knows not
perfect in everything we do, but we're
[3:28:33] trying to make a difference in the
community and I think we have. So, thank
[3:28:38] you.
>> Perfect. Yeah. Thank sound like you guys
[3:28:40] had a good time according to my text
messages. I kept that was on your group
[3:28:44] text messages. So be careful
>> with the
[3:28:49] me.
>> Okay. So um Mr. Ro.
[3:28:54] » Yeah. The only thing I really attended
was the uh MO for Rapid City and just an
[3:29:00] update on city uh infrastructure
projects and some of the stuff the state
[3:29:05] DOT is doing. Nothing too exciting.
>> Thank you again. I didn't I didn't make
[3:29:09] it to a lot of them last week. I spent a
lot of time trying to bridge some gaps
[3:29:13] with the cyber security stuff and some
of the things that were taking place
[3:29:17] between different
entities. So, we got a lot of that
[3:29:21] resolved. Like I said, we found a lot of
opportunities in there. With that being
[3:29:26] said, uh
>> Mr. Chair,
[3:29:27] » we look for Yep.
>> Yeah. I'm going to move to enter into
[3:29:29] executive session pursuant to SDCL125-2
subsection 3 for the purposes discussion
[3:29:36] discussing pending litigation
and SDCL125-26
[3:29:41] for the purposes to discussing emergency
management.
[3:29:47] » Motion from Dur and second by Drews. All
in favor say I. I. We're in executive
[3:29:52] session.
[3:30:01] I'm going to make a motion to come out
of executive session. Come out of
[3:30:04] executive session. Second. Have a motion
and a second to come out of executive
[3:30:07] session. Motion by Dur. Second by Ros
Connect. All in favor say I.
[3:30:10] » I.
>> Going to make a motion to adjurnn.
[3:30:12] » Second.
>> Have a motion and a second and a third
[3:30:16] from
>> a fourth. All in favor say I. I. Motion
[3:30:20] carries. Thanks guys.