County Commissioners address pay raises, airport future

With all members present, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, Dec. 2 in the Lincoln County Boardroom. Commissioners heard agenda items including digitizing files, pay raises, and airport conversations. 

Commission Assistant, Paul Anderson stood in for 4-H Advisor, Wendy Sweeter to give notice of intent to hold a raffle per SDCL 22-25-25 - Lincoln County 4-H Shooting Sports. No action is needed for the raffle unless the board objects. No action was taken.

Auditor, Sheri Lund was present to introduce Todd Meierhenry for possible action regarding potential 501(c)(3) refunding bond issue for the University of Sioux Falls. 

“Under federal law, the way they wrote it, it requires a governmental entity to actually issue their bonds. I think congress wanted to make sure the public had the right to comment and elected officials had the right to no or yes to if the 501c3 should issue debt and so it requires a governmental subdivision to be the conduit issuer and when they issue, they’re not liable for the debt, it does not count for constitutional purposes, and if the entity goes default, it doesn’t affect the issuers credit rating,” Meierhenry said. 

Meierhenry reported that municipalities, counties and sanitary districts can issue 501c3 private activity bonds under state law. 

“What we’re here today is to ask if you would be the conduit issuer. We’ve already drafted all the documents and sent the notice and the proposed resolution authorizing the refunding to the county, but basically, we need a nod that says the county would be interested in helping the university,” he continued. 

A motion to set a public hearing on Dec. 23 by Joel Arends, seconded by Jim Schmidt, motion carried.

Highway Assistant Superintendent, Jared Narum was present for the 2025 Lincoln County Bridge Inspection update. 

“We have a report card, basically, for how we’re doing with the bridges in Lincoln County. There are 140 of them, and we started the year with 32 weighted bridges, but ended the year with 28. We have four more in the next couple of years slated to be replaced to take off weight ratings,” he said. 

With no public comment, the commission thanked Narum for the update.

Register of Deeds, Becky Vander Broek asked the commission to consider a motion to authorize the Register of Deeds to hire US Imaging to scan Register of Deeds books and microfilm into digital files for an estimated cost of $189,443.26. 

“We are wanting to scan and in some cases rescan our books and microfilm with US Imaging. It is an estimated cost mainly because of the microfilm cards and not knowing for sure how many documents there actually are and how many they will have to work with,” she said. 

Commissioner Arends asked if this was a process that could be handled in house without the use of US Imaging. 

“I don’t think we’d be happy with the images. Some of it unfortunately is stuff that has already been done,” she responded. 

Vander Broek went on to show examples of staff scans and the scans that US Imaging was able to produce, showing the quality differences between the two. Motion to approve the hire of US Imaging by Betty Otten, seconded by Schmidt, motion carried. 

Auditor Lund requested board discussion with action to follow to establish an office of public defender. 

“During the budget discussions, we had talked about establishing a public defender office and now is the time that we should start moving forward on it. The first action that we need to do is for the board to establish it by prescribing the qualifications of the public defender, the term of office and the rate of annual compensation; and provide for the establishment, maintenance, and support of the office,” she said. 

Commissioner Arends asked what the rate of compensation would be. 

“We budgeted for $577,641 for the first year and that includes the public defender to legal assistants,” she said. 

Arends requested that before the commission hit the go button on establishing the office, that transparency is given to the budget in terms of overlap. 

“I don’t want to have to spend a half million dollars or if they come on in June $250,000 if we don’t have to and what I’m really interested in is not the perfunctory thing of let’s establish an office, I kind of want to get some real granular level clarity with regards to the budget,” he said. 

“Realistically we won’t be looking until the fourth quarter, quite frankly, just because of spacing concerns for the public defenders office,” said Chief Civil Deputy State’s Attorney, Drew DeGroot. 

A motion to approve from Otten, seconded by Schmidt, motion carried.

Human Resources Director, Kari Elling requested the commission consider a motion to approve holiday pay 2025. 

“I have a motion to approve a half day on Christmas Eve and a full day on December 26, just for this year only and that is based on the fact that the Christmas holiday falls on a Thursday,” she said. 

Commissioner Arends asked if the days off were already agreed upon earlier in the year. 

“We did not. In fact, what we passed and I believe the Auditor got up and asked if we wanted changes, knowing what the holiday schedule was, nobody requested any changes. So this has been in play all year and I think some offices are into scheduling and frankly I think it creates more havoc than anything. So I will not be supporting this today,” said Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen. 

Chairwoman Landeen asked for public input and Scott Montgomery chose to speak. 

“I appreciate you standing firm on this because these were talked about earlier in the year and trying to change it now is wrong. Like I say, if there’s snow, why should we pay overtime for something that they’re being paid for now?” he said. 

A motion to approve holiday pay 2025 by Otten, seconded by Arends asking Otten to amend her motion to only allow Friday off, not the half day on Christmas Eve. Otten amended her motion to include only Friday off, seconded by Arends, motion carried 3-2 with Schmidt and Landeen being no votes. Pulling back the vote for public comment, a new motion was made by Otten, seconded by Arends to approve Friday off for the employees, motion failed 4-1 with Otten being the yes vote.

Elling next asked the commission to consider a motion to approve the 2026 Pay Matrix. “

I’m asking you to approve our cost of living (COLA) for 2026 in addition to our regular step increases. The majority of this was budgeted for earlier in the year with a three per cent COLA increase and 2.5 step increase,” she said. 

Elling expressed the departments are having trouble competing with neighboring counties and employees are reporting positions elsewhere where wages are from 5 to 20% higher. Elling is asking the commission to consider a 4% COLA increase with the regular 2.5% step increase that was already budgeted. Elling reported the top three things that challenge her from a recruiting standpoint are pay, healthcare, and benefits and time off. Commissioner Schmidt asked where Lincoln County rates compared to the City of Sioux Falls. 

“We’re lagging behind and this is part of us trying to narrow the gap a little bit. We do need a full salary study and we’re vetting vendors for that. I think that will give us a clearer picture, but we’re anywhere from 5 to 15% of a gap depending on the position,” she responded. 

Commissioner Arends asked Elling if any one in the area had offered their employees a 4% cost of living adjustment. 

“That’s a good question, I know there are other counties that have done a 4%, some even more, one county said their total overall was 8%, but I don’t have the names off the top of my head,” she said. 

“The projected cost of living for Social Security is 2.8, inflation is projected at 2.8, so what a cost of living adjustment is for is for just that, a cost of living. So I don’t understand why we would go higher than what even the high end of the projected CPI is for next year,” Chairwoman Landeen said. 

Chairwoman Landeen opened the floor for public comment and Linda Montgomery stood to speak. 

“I agree with Chairwoman Landeen. I would like you to vote for what is in the budget. We don’t need to be continuing to expand our budget,” she said. 

A motion to set cost of living at 2.5% and a step increase at 2.5% by Arends, seconded by Putnam, motion carried 3-2, with Landeen and Schmidt being the no votes. 

Elling requested the commission consider a motion to approve the elected officials’ compensation for 2026. 

“The motion is to increase the elected officials’ pay by 4% plus a 2.5% for a total of 6.5%,” she said. A motion to give a 2.5% increase but no step increase by Arends, seconded by Putnam, motion carried 3-2 with Schmidt and Landeen being no votes.

The Commission welcomed back Airport Manager, David Myers, who gave a presentation and requested possible action on airport hangar ground lease rates. Myers reported to the commission there are 70 public airports in the state, five are commercially operated, and seven large general aviation airports and Lincoln County is one of those airports. With 73 hangars the Marv Skie Airport stores 103 aircraft. 

“The more aircraft we have that are federally based there, the more income that we do receive,” Myers said. 

The current leases at the airport at $0.15/sq ft with a lease term of 25 years. Commissioner Arends praised the work Myers has put in to making the airport revenue neutral enterprise. 

“I think we’re going in the right direction, but the devil is always in the details,” Arends said. “The airport has never been something that I think was ever taken seriously. It goes all the way back to even before I was on this commission and Marvin Skie adopted it. For all those years it was designed to be a reliever airport. It has a crosswind runway, and all of the necessary things to be a very viable place, but commissioners neglected over time and now we have just a single runway and the crosswind has been gone,” 

Commissioner Schmidt said thanking Myers for all the work he has put in. Schmidt has many ideas on how to develop the 20 acres. 

“The best way to go about it is to have a complete evaluation on what would be the best way. Should the county get in and borrow the money from the FAA and be hangar owners or should we let private enterprise come in, they build the hangars, and we collect the rent. All of that has to be evaluated,” Schmidt continued. 

“The only way this airport can become in the black is if we build the hangars, we lease the hangars out, and FAA pays for 90%, state pays for 5%, we pay 5%. That’s the only economical way this will ever get into the black. If we let the private enterprise, then we’re going by the square footage and it’s simple because it’ll never be in the black,” Putnam said.

 Noting that it was a presentation only, no action was taken on the matter.