Lincoln County approves 2027 budget, backs 911 retirement change

With all members present, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, Sept. 1. Commissioners heard agenda items including a public hearing on the budget and 911 reclassification.

A public hearing was held for the 2027 Lincoln County Budget. 

“The changes that were made were with the pay study that was implemented, and then we went through and changed all the personnel throughout the agenda. We had talked about moving 101417242600, or the HR budget, from 12,000 to 4,000. I didn’t do it originally published the provisional, so it’s in there now. The other change was revenue in emergency management, as Harold has confirmed that the state would do a 40% match,” said Auditor Sheri Lund. 

“I do support trying to put something together for some funding for the Lennox Ambulance issues that are going on. What I’ve done is work through and around things a little bit and not take any money out of cash reserves. I kind of asked the department heads to see if there was a little they could give each way to help meet the $60,000 that is recommended for the Lincoln County portion,” Commissioner Herman Otten said. 

Otten proposed taking a portion of funding from departments including 4-H, treasurers, sheriff, register of deeds, and more. Joel Arends questioned why the money should come out of the budget and not a taxation district for those using the service. 

“I think they’re concerned about this issue of  double taxation. You get taxed on your property taxes; you get taxed as a township. You give the money to the county and then the county sends one check out the door, in this instance proposed for $60,000, and then the townships send money out the door in whatever amounts they would decide to support the ambulance district. The issue has been brought to me as to why we have this taxation system that we do if we’re going to send these checks out? Instead, why don’t we just create the ambulance district and they would apply the tax to the affected people and those persons would pay for the service instead of county taxpayers from around the whole county,” he said. 

With no public input on the item, motion was made to approve by Jim Schmidt, seconded by Otten, the motion passed 4-1 with Putnam being the nay vote. Commissioner Arends questioned many line items in the budget, including those that the county gives money to each year.

 “We have a list of organizations: Children’s Inn, Helpline, Interlakes, Lennox Enrichment, Canton Transit, and Lifescapes. Dakotablilty is statutorily required, which means that there is a law in South Dakota that says we have to give x amount of money, but the law does not require us to spend money on any of these other organizations. All good organizations in some form or fashion, nonprofits, attempting to help people in the various forms of assistance that they need. When we have an $11 million budget shortfall, sometimes we need to, and this time we need to revisit where we are spending public money. Just generally speaking, these are nonprofit charities, and I would prefer to see the public give their charitable aid. The public cannot give charitable aid through the government,” Arends said, requesting all the nonprofit assistance back to the 2024 numbers. 

Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen asked for public comment on the issue, and Linda Montgomery stood to speak. 

“I think with our deficit that we have this year that this is a prudent decision. I know it’s not going to be popular, but I’ve done budgets for myself, my profession, and for my personal self, and I believe that sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and say we can’t this year, but we can look at it again next year,” she said. Motion to drop down economic assistance to the 2024 by Arends, seconded by Putnam; motion failed 3-2 with Putnam and Arends being the nay votes. Commissioner Putnam asked if the wage increase for 2027 would include the 3% increase approval. “I’m not understanding your question; we put in the pay study,” said Landeen.

 Auditor Lund chimed in, stating all employees would be included in the increase from the research study.

Sheriff Steve Swenson requested the commissioners consider a resolution in support of the South Dakota Retirement System reclassification of 911 Telecommunicators to Class B public safety members. 

“I was contacted by assistant fire chief Graham, who oversees Metro Communications, and he’s spearheaded this, which I think is long overdue. They want all 27 PSAPs to be on board with moving dispatchers from the Class A retirement system to the Class B retirement system. What that entailed for Lincoln County is reaching out to all our employees who qualified as a dispatcher. It’s not retroactive, but by moving from the A system to the B system, it reduces 10 years off their service. It’s a high-stress position just like law enforcement and they asked me to present this to the commission, and I 100% support the South Dakota Retirement System reclassifying the 911 telecommunication operators,” he said. 

“If the cost to the county is going to increase by adopting the resolution, we then, as responsible stewards of taxpayer money, have to look for other offsets. So if you want to increase the amount of money through moving these people’s categories, you have to look for ways to make that revenue neutral, and that’s why any kind of discussion about moving these people from retirement categories requires us to talk about the number we have,” Arends said. 

Chairwoman Landeen asked for public comment on the proposal, with Chad Skiles being the first to speak. 

“Being an old 911 dispatcher and a former 911 director for Lincoln County who saw the onboarding of Turner County and the importance of regionalized 911 and what it can do for smaller counties in South Dakota I want to say that I support this resolution 100% and I support including the current dispatching staff as if you look at Lincoln County 911 current dispatching staff, easily half of them have 20-35 years of service to Lincoln County and if you look to the communities around us, the turnover is way higher than in Lincoln County,” he said. 

Motion was made to approve by Schmidt, seconded by Otten; motion carried unanimously.