Commission approves provisional budget

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Moody County commissioners approved a provisionary budget of $6.5 million Aug. 7, an amount smaller than last year because large expenses, including the Ward Road bridge and a new ambulance, were one-time purchases.
The commission also scaled back some department requests, including a 4 percent pay increase for county employees. Instead, workers will get a 2 percent increase under the planned budget.
Commissioners have until the end of September to approve a final budget for 2019 and will meet 9 a.m. Sept. 25 to take that action.
The grand total for the budget is $7.75 million but that includes $1.24 million in operating transfers or cash that needs to be taken out of the final projections.
A request for an additional deputy for the Sheriff’s Office remains in the budget but commissioners will further discuss whether that stays in the final budget.
“I think it’s needed,” said Jerry Doyle, commission chairman.
“It’s needed. Can we afford it?” asked Commissioner Tom Ehrichs.
Commissioner Dan Miles asked if the county needs a deputy or a deputy and a car. “That’s going to be the biggest thing in the budget right now.”
But commissioners also floated the idea whether it is time to reconsider county-wide law enforcement, rather than both the county and city having its own officers and deputies. Could staffing be more efficient and less expensive for taxpayers under that scenario, they asked.
Economically, that would be the way to go, Doyle said.
“That’s the city’s choice,” said Commissioner Rick Veldkamp.
City Administrator Jeff Pederson said in an interview separate from the meeting that he would not want to comment on the idea at this point because it is a complex issue. No one from the city was at the county meeting, nor is it something a representative would typically attend.

County commissioners did approve the hiring of two dispatchers, one to fill an open spot and the other in anticipation of Leetha Petersen’s retirement from full-time employment at the end of the year. Petersen has more than four decades of experience as a dispatcher and does the department’s paperwork, a job she needs time to teach someone else to do, Wellman said.
The dispatchers have been interviewed and would start training this month so that by the end of September, Petersen could train a co-worker on the paperwork part of the job.
Commissioners also approved a travel request by Wellman to attend a White House event Aug. 30 in which South Dakota counties have been invited to come and share concerns.
“It sounds like it’s been happening to other states around the country,” he said. “It’s an invitation. It doesn’t really detail out what the goal is, what the plan is.”
Because there is money remaining this year in the sheriff’s travel budget and because Wellman could represent the county’s concerns, including drugs and trafficking, at the meeting,
commissioners voted to approve the request, estimated to be less than $1,000.
In other county business,
•Commissioners reconsidered a request to lower the speed limit on the highway east of the golf course to 483rd Avenue, but after listening to citizen testimony, decided to leave the area at 55 miles an hour.
Shawn Jaacks had written to the commission requesting that the lower speed limit be reconsidered after commissioners left it at 55 miles an hour in a discussion two weeks earlier.
While commissioners said that Jaacks has valid concerns, extending a slower speed limit that far out in the country isn’t necessary and there isn’t a record of accidents caused by speed in that area.
Patrons leaving the golf course need to be educated on looking for oncoming traffic from the east, said Kim Patterson who lives at the corner of 483rd Avenue. “They’re not looking,” she said. “I know to slow down.”
She is opposed to reducing the speed, however, because the course is only used four months of the year, she said. “I don’t think it’s enough for us to drive 40 every day when four months out of the year they golf,” she said. “I don’t want to drive into town at 40 when there’s no reason to do that.”
Leanne Amdahl, who also lives on 483rd, said she makes several trips to town each day and slows down to look for deer. She too was opposed to a reduced speed in the area.
If the speed was lowered and law enforcement stopped speeders, the road has no shoulder to pull off on and would cause a danger to motorists, she said.
The county will look at cutting back any trees that are in the right-of-way to provide better visibility around the curves. In addition, a county representative will talk to the park board about things that can be done to encourage patrons to look more closely before pulling out into traffic.
•Commissioners had the first reading on an effort to repeal a Moody County ordinance from 2004 that allowed for reduced taxes on new industrial, commercial and commercial residential construction with a value of more than $30,000 and agriculture structures with a value of more than $10,000 for five years after construction. That original ordinance removed the ability of towns within the county to adopt discretionary formulas and offer tax incentives for economic development because the county’s ordinance trumped any other ordinance.
Ag development already gets a break on taxes.
The issue relates to tax incentives that were offered by the Flandreau Development Corporation to Tyler Kills-A-Hundred, who planned to rebuild his meat locker after it burned in a fire last summer. The FDC has since rescinded the incentives to Kills-A-Hundred, in part because it decided it could not reduce taxes for him, or anyone else, with the county ordinance in place.
Flandreau, Trent and Colman have the same plan for tax breaks, a tiered incentive that gradually increases each year for five years. The county’s tax break was simply no taxes on qualifying new construction for the first year followed by 100 percent of taxes in years two through five.
•In the county board of adjustment, commissioners approved a 15-foot variance for a grain bin for county commissioner Miles, who recused himself from voting on the issue. Township officials and other landowners in the area had no opposition to the variance.
•During that part of the meeting, commissioners also approved a road haul agreement for the construction phase of Ryan Zwart’s Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation. Zwart will need to put the road back in its original condition once construction is completed.
“I want it to be a good road, too. I need to use it,” he said.
•In the joint board of planning and zoning, commissioners approved a plat change for five acres of land owned by Mike Schmidt in the south portion of the county. The property, which includes a CAFO permit for a 2,400-animal hog facility that Schmidt was approved for, is being sold to Seven Pigs LLC. Seven Pigs filed paperwork as a Limited Liability Company on July 2 and lists a mailing address of Rock Rapids, Iowa, according to the South Dakota Secretary of State’s website.
The planned hog facility has not been built at this point.
The permit for the CAFO moves with the property and would remain the same for the new owner, said Kendra Eng, deputy of planning and zoning.
•The county has had property owners stop in to pay for past building permits they failed to take out after the equalization office started using a computer program to find properties that had added on but not applied for permits to do so.
So far, the county has looked at Alliance Township and has started on Blinsmon Township. Letters are sent out after the entire township has been reviewed.
With four violations in Alliance, all four came in and paid for permits, said DeAnna Berke, director of equalization. Blinsmon has many more violations, she said.