County commissioners keep spending

Pennington County Commissioners provisionally approved a $131 million budget at the July 18 Pennington County Commissioner meeting.

This is the same size as the budget of Minnehaha County, despite Pennington County being about half the size of the East River county. Minnehaha also decreased its budget from $168.5 million in 2024 to its provisional amount of $131 million for next year.

Concerned Pennington County citizen Bruce Meister sent an email to Pennington County Commissioners that was read at the beginning of the special meeting.  He  called government  spending, “wasteful” placing the “burden on all us taxpayers”.

Meister said, “the people (most of us anyway) are not made of money and it is extremely important that you do not waste any of it.”

Meister added, “we do not have bottomless pockets. And, the way taxes are going up every time I turn around, I am very concerned about being taxed out of my home because my income does not change. That is not on you.”

Cindy Mohler, Pennington County auditor, explained several ways to look at the county reserves to get a higher percentage and thus be in a range for a more favorable bond rating.

If the county goes below 25 percent it could affect the county bond rating.

If the budget was reduced by $4,791,000, the unassigned reserve balance would be 20 percent.

If the reserve percentage was calculated using the unassigned fund balance and the assigned to next year’s budget balance that percentage would go up to about 27 percent.

To get to a 30 percent  reserve percentage the calculation would need to use the unassigned fund balance and all the assigned balances. 

Commissioner Travis  Lasseter said, “I find it kind of odd because we’re in a pinch year or we’re in a tighter year and we didn’t meet our goals and we’re gonna change the way we’re gonna do things, and how we’re gonna look at our debt ratio, how we’re gonna look at our reserve balance and all that kind of stuff.

“I don’t think that’s necessarily appropriate because we can’t make everything fit where we want it to fit based on the way we’ve been doing it for the last several years. I’m not comfortable changing the way we’re doing it,” he said, noting the “impact isn’t different.”

“It shows we’ve overspent what we projected,” he said.

Commissioner Deb Hadcock also had concerns  about the budget, reserves and wage scale compression saying, “there are a lot of factors in the budget we haven’t considered.”

County commissioners did look at cuts in the special meeting, although very few were made. 

The City of Rapid City wants the county to cover half of the operating costs for GIS, which is used for things like Rapid City maps. The county agreed to allow the county to step into the increase over the next two  years, saving the county $38,162.

Eric Whitcher’s original request was for three additional  full-time employees (FTE) and a legal secretary for the public defender office. He withdrew the FTEs so his office could move to the new salary scale, calling recruiting and retention “our biggest issue this next year or two.”

This is a $400,000 reduction.

Whitcher advocated on behalf of Dakota Plains, a 501(c)3,  for its additional $103,000 request for a full-time employee.

Dakota Plains handles conflicts, according to Whitcher. He said if conflicts can’t get resolved the county may end up getting large bills for private attorney fees.

He called Dakota Plains services a “tremendous benefit” for the county.

“The odds of us having, just by sheer numbers, a conflict is much greater than a smaller office,” Whitcher said. “I would highly recommend you look at increasing that contract so that they could accept more serious cases.”

Whitcher said it was about “building efficiencies” within offices that handle cases because lawyers are in a courtroom that handles five cases versus one.

Commissioners approved the additional amount for the public advocate for Dakota Plains in a 3-2 vote, with Hadcock and Lasseter voting against.

The state’s attorney’s office  withdrew its request for three new full-time employees, which commissioners approved. Stat’es attorney Lara  Roetzel repeatedly told commissioners she “desperately needed” these positions, but was offering a concession so that commissioners would “grant the wage scale.”

It was a similar conversation with Joe Miller of the highway department, who said prior to 2018 his office had 50 full-time employees for about 10 or 15 years. He said Hill City and Wall each have five people in their divisions while Rapid City has many.

His requested FTE would be for New Underwood specifically at a cost of about $80,000, and was approved by commissioners in a 3-2 vote. After that approval, in which Lasseter and Hadcock voted to deny, Lasseter pointed out that rather than cut the budget significantly, the commissioners had approved over $125,000 in expenditures.

Buildings and grounds  asked for five new FTEs for their department. 

Dave Eccleston,  assistant director for buildings and grounds said to commissioners, “If we can maintain the people we have and not get them to leave we’ll have to push forward and do the best that we can.”

The county has added two additional buildings to its coffers, and Hadcock said this was one area in which she supports additional employees.

Hadcock said, “We’ve made them make do with two increased buildings and we’re saying ‘make do again.’” Hadcock says she wanted to be fair to this department and was fighting for them.

More discussion will take place Aug. 6 for the Buildings and Grounds Department FTE request.

Sheriff Brian Mueller said compression steps in the wage study were implemented in all departments in the county with the exception of his office.  The increase for his department is $285,000.

Mueller reduced his budget by $285,000 in order to offset this increase.

Commissioners approved this. Lasseter noted it was a “net zero” for the county.

In another 3-2 vote commissioners voted to implement the wage study. Hadcock was passionate in her vote against the study.

“Some of the numbers for me aren’t adding up,” Hadcock said. “Some of the changes that are current and not with job descriptions, for me I’m not in agreement with.”

She said she was trying to “thoroughly vet it” despite seeing some discrepancies already. Lasseter also voted against the implementation.

“I do see how the public should see how we’re changing some stuff. One hundred percent,” Lasseter said.

Commissioners did vote to cut the Fire Administration General Fund Reserve accumulation by $100,000, which is half  the original request Jerome Harvey of the Pennington County Fire Administration  was asking for. 

Hadcock was unsure where the reserve fund total needed to be but recalled a time when the retirement of a fire administrator had drained these reserves in the past.

Commissioners also unanimously voted to reduce the Central States Fair (Fairgrounds) budget by $16,339, bringing the fairgrounds subsidy back to what it was in 2024.

According to collected  data the fairgrounds operation generates “a $1.3 million property tax revenue,” said Ron Jeffries, general manager of the Central States Fairgrounds.

Mohler says, “it sounds like you’re talking more about sales tax, not property tax.” However, he said both.

Jefferies said the HVAC system in the events center is in “dire need of repair.” His memo to commissioners cites a $2 million cost for that project. 

Commissioner Lloyd Lacroix said, “A $1.5 million hit, especially in a year like this, I hate it tell you I don’t see that happening.” 

He sees some sort of capital improvement program for the fairground board to consider.

The three-hour special meeting ended with the commissioners approving the provisional budget in the amount of  $131,414,893. Hadcock explained her reasoning for voting against this saying, “you’re playing with numbers in order to make this budget work.”

She continued by saying that in representing her constituents, “they haven’t been OK with what we’re doing on this provisional.”

People can comment on the Pennington County budget in a variety of ways. 

They can submit a webform via the commissioners’ website, send an email directly to pcboc@pen

nco.org, mail comments to the Board of Commissioners at PO Box 6160,  Rapid City, SD 57709, drop off their written  comments at the commission office or call the commission office at 605-394-2171 Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.