The Lincoln County Commissioners met Tuesday, December 5 in the Lincoln County Boardroom.
With all members present, Commissioners heard agenda items including legislative audit letters, moving funds, and 4-H projects.
Auditor, Sheri Lund requested board action to approve and authorize the Chair and Auditor to execute a letter regarding the 2022 audit of the Lincoln County financial statements.
“At the last meeting, you had requested that the legislative audit letter be moved to this meeting for more time to review it, the letter is the position of Lincoln County regarding the audit for 2022, so we need approval for the chair and myself to sign it. Also, if the county would like to make a comment regarding the 40 percent that we were over, we need to have that comment turned in before the end of the day,” Lund said.
Motion approved.
Next, Lund requested board discussion to assign 2023 general fund cash.
“Per the audit we had this year, we discovered that we are over the 40 percent per SDCL 721 18-1, this is just a discussion about setting that assignment for the year at the end of the year, and we’d like to wait until December 26 to set it,” said Lund.
“I showed you on the briefing form the calculations for figuring it out, and as of November 28, it would be about $18,296,047 that we need to assign, but that of course is going to change because we’re going to have two pay meetings between now and December 26,” Lund continued.
Commissioner Tiffani Landeen asked Lund where the best place to assign the money would be. “I have been talking to Terry in the Highway Shop about a different way of doing his budgeting, we were going to do an average of his expenditures over the last few years and I’d like to put a cash assignment for that because in case there is a road project or something that comes in, since we’re going to be doing averaging, not what is actual, then we would have those funds available there to transfer rather than doing the cash applied at the beginning and then seeing if he ends up having any. I’d also like to sign next years cash applied which is $7 million, assign that and then assign $2 million for capital outlay accumulations that would be for future projects, but haven’t completely landed on that one yet, but the actual assignment is going to come from you,” she said. With no action required, the board thanked Lund for her time on the matter.
4-H Advisor, Wendy Sweeter joined the meeting to give notice of Lincoln County 4-H Shooting Sports Raffle per SDCL 22-25-25. “I am just here to provide notice that the 4-H Shooting Sports Club wants to do their annual raffle again, starting in January when they have their first practice. It requires a 30-day notice before they can start,” she said. Motion approved.
Sweeter also requested board action to approve the building plans for the Swine Barn and Cattle Barn at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds and to authorize building permits for the two buildings. “Chad Hazel from the Fairgrounds Foundation was going to be here today, but he is unable to be. The Foundation has met as a group and has come to the conclusion to do plans for the swine barn and cattle barn that are the same as what the sheep and goat barns are that are currently up out there. The swine barn, the only difference that there will be is that it will have four inches of cement in that barn throughout and it would have fencing around the outside of that,” she said. Commissioner Jim Jibben questioned Sweeter on if the water issues have been squared away at the Fairgrounds. “Yes, the Commission approved that at one of the last few meetings,” she responded. Motion approved.
Human Resources Director, Traci Humphrey joined the meeting to request board action to approve a reclassification and recategorization of the Planning and Zoning/ Geographical Information System Administrative Assistant to a Planner in the Planning and Zoning Department. “The position is currently graded at 105 and we’re requesting to move that position that’s now currently vacant to go from to a planner and that is only in the planning and zoning department. In the briefing form I share some facts and vetting about the history of the position and why we’re bringing that request. In short, we have a position now that has been made vacant due to a resignation and we’re looking at the needs of that department and determined that administrative assistant, while good and helpful, is not going to be able to bring everything that Toby would like to see in that department. So, we go through sort of the changes that have occurred and the volume that they’ve had and so we have asked that a planner position will allow them to increase the volume and handle the complexity of the requests and permits. At the bottom of the facts and vetting, I share sort of what exactly what the changes are, so we’re asking for a recategorization from the admin assistant to a planner to remove the salary split that is currently GIS and Planning and Zoning to be 100 per cent under Planning and Zoning and then reclassify the position from 105 to 109. Part of the request today is that there would be an increase of cost so that’s outside of the budget time we’re estimating and be about $9,000 to $15,000 due to the change in classification and education requirements. However, Planning and Zoning has felt that there will likely be cost savings in their fee and contracts line as well as when we’ve looked at when how long it took us to find a planner. In the past, it typically is about three to four months from the time that we post that position to recruiting or to filling it so likely that there wouldn’t be cost increase because of the time it would take for recruiting,” she said. Motion approved.