Lincoln County meeting draws public criticism over vehicle costs, Commissioner’s comment

With all members present, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, June 10 in the Lincoln County Boardroom. 

Dr. Kenneth Snell was present for a budget work session. The work session is requested from all departments that have a new employee request, a new vehicle request, a large project, or expenditures over three percent minus personnel. 

“As you know, what we do for a living cannot be really predicted, unfortunately, and that really affects our ability to do budgets. The budget that I submitted originally was based off of three months and it just so happened those three months were the worst three months we’ve had since I’ve been the coroner starting back in 2018,” Snell said. 

Snell reports that even after reworking the numbers, the amount of transports his department will have this year will increase and autopsies will increase from 18 to 22. 

“The overall budget increase being 33.6 percent is a big jump, I understand that, unfortunately, there isn’t much I can do about the transport cost,” he said. 

Snell suggested ways of lessening the budget if it was needed. 

“One thing we could do to lessen it is if we went back to having a local coroner here, based out of the county instead of up in Sioux Falls, because that means all those bodies that we need to look at have to be brought to Sioux Falls, whereas, if there’s a local coroner here, they could look at them here, and you wouldn’t have the extra transport,” Snell said. 

Commissioner Doug Putnam asked if there was a facility in Lincoln County to store the bodies and Snell responded there was not, prior to him, the local funeral home director would store them at their facility. Commissioner Joel Arends asked why the budget had doubled in cost and asked where and who that money would be going to. 

“The company that was doing our transports basically turned in a notice saying they weren’t going to transport anymore. Therefore, we had to go out and find a new transport company. We met with all the local funeral homes, they all declined to take on that role. Dakota Embalming Transport stepped up and offered a solution, a proposal of cost, and Minnehaha County reached an agreement with them. So now the question is, what are we going to do in this county,” Snell said.

The Commission thanked Snell for his report.

Sheriff Steve Swenson was next to present his budget work session for the Sheriff’s Department. 

“The overall Sheriff’s Department budget is a 2.8 percent decrease, but the main thing is we bought six vehicles last year versus five this year,” Swenson said. 

The department drove 514,490 miles last year and try to rotate vehicles out between 100,000 and 120,000 miles on the engine. 

“I am also asking for three full-time employees which are deputy positions, and that’s mainly because of the increase in the Harrisburg contract and the Harrisburg population,” he said. 

Commissioner Arends asked how many vehicles the Sheriff’s Department currently has. Swenson responded with 34 vehicles. Commissioner Jim Schmidt asked if Swenson and his department have seen an increase in crime at storage facilities like other counties in the area are reporting. 

“I think the deputies have a pretty good system in place to work with the storage unit owners, and we now have access to a lot of the facilities, so I think crime is down because we have this better system and we have vehicles that aren’t recognizable as police cars, but it’s still an issue,” he responded. 

The Commission thanked Swenson for his report.

Human Resources Director, Kari Elling presented the budget work session for her department. Elling is requesting technology and support for her department.

 “We have a significant number of FMLA’s happening on a rotating basis that take a lot of manual tracking and put us at a little bit of risk in terms of we’re not medical experts and we don’t have the ability to make medical decisions so there’s a lot of things that happen from a legal standpoint, both federally and locally, that we have to keep track of. The ADP system we use has a outsourcing called total absence management and they would do all of the tracking, all of the hunting down, working with the medical providers, working with the employees, making sure that from the time of their absence to the time that they return to work that all of the paperwork is tracked down,” she said. 

The program has a cost of four dollars per employee per month and an implementation fee of $5,000. Commissioner Betty Otten praised Elling for the work she has done in the short time that she has been in the role and applauded her efforts to find solutions to her problems without needing additional staff.

Assistant Commission Administrative Assistant, Paul Anderson, was present for 4-H Advisor, Wendy Sweeter for Notice of Lincoln County Open Class Raffle per SDCL 22-25-25 and for 4-H Junior Leaders Chicken Bingo per SDCL 22-25-25. Lincoln County Open Class will be holding a raffle in conjunction with Lincoln County 4-H Achievement Days July 27-31. They will be selling tickets at $10 per ticket or 3 for $25 for a half a hog; $1 per ticket for a bucket of eggs; and a dozen tickets for $10 for a 3-dozen, 2-dozen or 1-dozen box of eggs. The drawings will be done at the 4-H barbecue on July 31. The Lincoln County 4-H Junior Leaders will be holding Chicken Bingo in conjunction with Lincoln County 4-H Achievement Days July 27-31. They will be selling tickets at $10 per ticket. The prize will be half of the proceeds going to the winner and the other half staying with the Junior Leaders. No action was required from the commission unless they rejected. With no rejections, and no public input, the commission thanked Anderson for his time. 

Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen opened the floor up to public comment and Chris Davis chose to voice her opinion. 

“I was just wanting to speak today a little bit, I read in the Dakota Scout that seven departments want new vehicles this cycle, the auditor’s office and the 4-H program appear on the list for the first time with the Auditor asking for $55,000 for its unit. It stuck with me, want versus need. Ironically, my husband’s truck needed some repairs this last week, anybody that has a truck or vehicle knows that’s not cheap. We didn’t want to spend the money, we needed to, and as budget conscious as we are, we don’t need a new truck. We crunched the numbers, budget, and financially conservative as we are, yes, the truck bill stunk, but it was the budget we worked with to fix the truck. That’s what budget conscious people do. We didn’t buy a new truck and bill our neighbors for it. So, I also crunched some numbers, Pierre is 201 miles from right here and that would be a 402 mile round trip, the state mileage is 67 cents per mile so that would be $269.34. At $55,000 for a vehicle divided by 67 cent per milage allotment is 82,000 to equal that $55,000, that doesn’t include the cost of insurance, taxes, upkeep, or expenses. I don’t know about the Auditor’s Office, but I understand the Sheriff’s Department and I’m happy I don’t see them on some of the roads that I’m on,” she said. 

Chad Skiles of Canton was next to speak to the commission.

“I’m here today speaking for myself as a citizen of Lincoln County and representing no organizations. Two weeks ago, the Lincoln County Commission held its first meeting after what felt like years of citizens requesting a meeting be moved to the evening. I applaud the commission for making that decision and allowing more citizens to attend in person at least one meeting per month and let their voices be heard. As a regular attendee at commission meetings, unfortunately, the fourth Tuesday of the month meeting conflicts with another meeting that I have on the same night. The great part of that, is that Lincoln County also streams and makes available the ability for citizens to watch the meeting at a later date and time and that is exactly what I did a couple of days later. As I watched the meeting, regular agenda item number nine came up for discussion, an action that dealt with the Lincoln County Sheriff to enter into a contract with the Harrisburg School District to move the Sheriff’s Office, Harrisburg substation into the old elementary school located on Willow Street. Included in the discussion were comments from the Sheriff that he was able to negotiate a reasonable contract and would make the cost work into the current budget and keep it nearly cost neutral. It was at that time that the commissioner sitting to my far left on the dais, next to the commission clerk, spoke up and made an antisemitic comment regarding the cost negotiations. I will not repeat what he said, but anyone can go to the video of the May 27 meeting at the 2 hour and 16 minute mark and hear it for themselves. I, frankly, could not believe what I heard and went back to listen to it again. With all that is going on in this country and this world regarding antisemitism, to hear it spoken by a local elected county commissioner was uncalled for, unprofessional, and appalling. Words matter. Words can be hurtful and should always be chosen carefully. I will no go into any further discussion or details regarding this topic as it is now part of the public record that can be seen and heard by everyone. Commissioner, you owe an apology for that horrible comment. Ignorance, bias, or a slip of the tongue is no excuse,” he said. 

Commissioner Putnam chose to speak at the end of the meeting. 

“I was narrowed out, evidentially I said something wrong, and I’m supposed to apologize, which I won’t. I don’t apologize for anything I say. I say what I say, and I mean what I mean, and if somebody takes offense of that, they could actually give it in writing what I did. After that, I have no clue,” he said.