County Commissioners approve budget supplements, wage increases

With all members present, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, March 25 in the Lincoln County Boardroom. Commissioners heard agenda items including budget supplements, wage increases and bid approvals.

Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen read the description of a public hearing to consider an application for a temporary on-sale malt beverage license to operate outside the municipality for Lennox Baseball & Softball Association, LBSA for an event to occur on April 26, 2025, located at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds, 27711 Hwy 17, Lennox, SD 57039, legally described as 34.12 Acres in NE Quarter including railroad property Section 29-Township 99- N Range 51 West of the 5th principal meridian Lincoln County SD. 

The applicant, Jon Vandehoef, was present to give background on the event. 

“Ducks Unlimited is hosting their annual fundraiser, however, they’re kind of short on staff and whatnot, so they also like to interact with their guests at the event, so they asked somebody to step up in the community and do their soda, alcohol sales, and stuff like that, so they aren’t taking people away from entertaining guests,” he said.  

With no proponents or opponents in the crowd, a motion to approve was made by Jim Schmidt, seconded by Betty Otten, motion carried.

Auditor Sheri Lund was present for a public hearing pursuant to SDCL 7-21-22, for the purpose of adopting the following supplements to the 2025 Budget: A supplement adding to the debt service TIF #8 budget for 204,000 for current taxes and principal payments, a supplement adding to the Commission budget to fees and contracts in the amount of $150,000 per resolution 2412-48 dated 12-24-2024, a supplement adding to the Coroner budget to fees and transports in the amount of $6,000 per resolution 2412-18 dated 12-10-2024, a supplement adding to Other Economic Assistance budget in the amount of $67,393.75 per resolution 2412-22 passed on 12-10-2024, a supplement adding to the Sheriff's budget in the amount of $33,000 per resolution 2412-15 passed on 12-10-2024. 

Commissioner Joel Arends stated in the document the payments were not made in 2024 and asked her to clarify. 

“The opioid distribution, you had authorized them to be made in December of 2024, it never got processed, so the budget authority then went away for 2024, so we needed to give you the budget authority again in 2025 to process the checks,” she said. 

Chairwoman Landeen asked for proponents or opponents and Linda Montgomery stood to voice her opinion.

 “I will admit that I’m a little lost on this public hearing for the for the supplements. We’re adding a supplement already to the 2025 budget and two weeks ago it was $70,000 in addition for architecture for the justice center and then I’m looking here at another addition to the budget. Maybe I’m not understanding this clearly of why we are already doing an addition to the budget and I am opposed to this until I have further understanding,” she said. 

Chairwoman Landeen gave Auditor Lund an opportunity to address Montgomery’s concerns. 

“We had to supplement the budget due to resolutions that the board has passed, the $70,000 that Linda is referring to is part of the bonding that is not part of the budget process in this context. These are resolutions that were passed by the board, so in order to have the money spent, the budget needs to be increased because the board already approved the spending,” Lund responded. 

Motion to approve the supplements made by Otten, seconded by Schmidt, motion carried.

Director of IT, Jake Oakland requested board discussion with possible action to follow for wage changes within the Information Technology Department. 

“I’m here to seek authorization for the potential to increase the salaries for the IT Director and the systems administrator for the department. We have an opening that recently happened in our office, and with that we did a survey to see what the title’s are out there and what every county is using and how they’re paying, and we noticed a discrepancy that we feel would be a great asset to the county to keep retention for the IT department,” he said. 

Oakland stated there will be no increase to the 2025 budget, even with the possible new hire. Commissioner Doug Putnam asked Oakland how many times he has been approached by other companies. 

“I would say that it’s happened,” Oakland responded. 

“I’m looking at this in the respects that you are kind of the top of the food chain as far as taking care of business in this county courthouse, I just wanted to make people aware of the fact that there are people always looking for people,” Putnam said. 

A motion to approve the wage change by Otten, seconded by Schmidt, the motion carried unanimously.

Highway Superintendent, Terry Fluit requested board action to purchase a base stabilizing agent off the Harding County bid from Team Lab for $27/gallon. 

“We are probably going to need about 11 totes, again, we’re going to be using this for a project on County Road 134 this year. We’re going to be doing FDR and stabilization and repaving of that road,” Fluit said. 

Motion by Putnam, seconded by Schmidt, motion carried.

Lincoln County Sheriff, Steve Swenson was present for a Sheriff’s Department presentation. 

“We currently have 22 deputies including sergeants and the patrol lieutenant, nine employees in the jail, five in civil, and 13 in communications for a total of 53 employees,” Sheriff Swenson stated. 

Sheriff Swenson oversees the 24/7 budget, the jail budget, the communication center budget, and the sheriff’s office budget. In 2024, the department handed out 2,904 citations, 3,532 warnings, and had 29 juvenile summons. 

“When I look at the numbers, one is trending down, and I credit this to the work the deputies are doing, and that’s the burglaries. They’ve got a system on these storage units which is our number one thing that gets hit, but they’ve pushed it down by 30 percent,” Swenson said. 

In 2025, Sheriff Swenson feels call volume is right on track with last year, and this year has already collected $111,803.53 in grant money for the department.