County OKs finance officer

After what some on the Custer County Commission called a decade of problems with the Custer County Auditor’s Office, the commission has created a position it feels will solve the problem.
At its Oct. 13 meeting the commission unanimously passed the first reading of Ordinance 25, which combines the elected offices of auditor and treasurer into one elected official called the finance officer. The finance officer will oversee both deputy auditors and deputy treasurers, whom will be interviewed and hired by the county, rather than having the treasurer and auditor elected. The position will be a four-year term and will be up for election in 2022. County treasurer Dawn McLaughlin is working in that capacity currently.
The issues at the auditors office have been somewhat ongoing since 2014, when longtime auditor Linda Nelson retired. Nancy Christensen, who was a deputy auditor at the time, won an election and took over the auditor role, but resigned Feb. 8, 2017 after a state audit showed a litany of errors. It was at that time that the most recent auditor, Terri Cornelison, the former head of the department of equalization, stepped into the auditor role.
Earlier this year the county received back its  2018-19 audit, in which there were $14.3 million in reporting errors on financial statements. Bruce Hintz of the South Dakota Department of Legislative Audit came before the commission at its July 14 meeting to discuss the audit and laid out the errors, the bulk of which were in the county’s general ledger, which keeps track of cash by individual funds. There was no money missing from the county.
Shortly after Hintz’s presentation, the commission announced Cornelison’s resignation, which the commission said was voluntary and would see Cornelison made chief deputy auditor and put McLaughlin in charge of the functions of the auditor and treasurer office while work was done to rectify the errors happening in the auditor’s office.
However, at the Sept. 7 meeting of the commission Cornelison abruptly resigned altogether, saying she felt she was being blamed for the problems with the books, stating that the office was “in shambles” when she took over the position.
McLaughlin has been overseeing both the auditor and treasurer office since then.
“We’ve had so many problems the last few years, we need to look at other solutions,” commission chairman Jim Lintz said. “We had good people who just couldn’t do the job. It really puts us in a poor position as commissioners to make decisions. If you elect someone who is just a good person it puts us in a big bind.”
Lintz said when he was first elected to the commission he attempted to get a statement of what the county’s financial situation was and didn’t get it for three years. When he finally got it, he said, it wasn’t accurate.
“We haven’t really got it straight since,” he said. “We have been fighting this and fighting this. This year it came to a head.”
County attorney Susan Anderson said Brookings County has combined its offices and has a finance officer, and it has worked well for them, although they physically combined their offices as well, which McLaughlin said she is not in favor of because of how busy the treasurer’s office can be on any given day.
Commissioner Travis Bies said he recommended the combination of the offices five years ago, and is glad the county is finally going that route.
Commissioner Mark Hartman said while he was initially against the combination, the last audit results changed his mind.
Lintz said there is no way to know if the person running for auditor or treasurer is qualified to do the job, which can tie the hands of the commission if the person elected can’t adequately do the job.
“The way it is now, I could run for treasurer,” Lintz said. “That’s sort of scary.”
The commission also heard from veterans service officer Todd Fish, who updated the commission on the process for acquiring and spending American Rescue Plan Act funds for the county.
Included in the presentation was a list of recommended projects for which the county’s $1.742 million could be spent which includes $650,000 for affordable housing utilities sewer and water, replacing an East Custer Sewer District pipe the runs under a bridge just west of Custer and putting in a larger culvert in the same location for flood mitigation, $350,000 for  a new Custer Highlands Volunteer Fire Department station, $40,000 for the east Custer County Highway shop water line.
The list of recommendations is just that—a recommendation—Fish said, and the county could add, subtract or award the money as it saw fit. Commissioners said they would like the entities who would receive the money to come before the commission to state their case as to why it is needed.
Bies said while all the projects are good projects, he didn’t think that three-quarters of the money should be spent within the City of Custer, saying there are other entities and towns in the county that could use monetary assistance.
“I have a problem with that much money going strictly right here in town,” he said.
“Like I said, these are just recommended and you can change them however you want,” Fish said. “You are the gatekeepers.”
The commission eventually voted to approve the first three projects to keep the process moving forward, although they are still subject to change. The commission also encouraged anyone with other project ideas they feel may qualify for funding to present those ideas to the commission at a future meeting.
In other news from the Oct. 13 meeting, the commission:
• Approved advertising for request for qualifications for planning services and engineering at the Custer County Airport. The county’s five-year agreement with the current firm is coming to a close.
• Approved spending $24 per hour for up to 24 hours per week for a consulting agreement with Tracy Fish to create documentation and manuals for processes and procedures for the auditor’s office.
• Heard from sheriff Marty Mechaley, who said the sheriff’s office was losing Sgt. Matt Warren to a move out of state, while approving deputy Dave Clevenger to sergeant, which comes with a $1 an hour raise. Mechaley also requested adding a full-time dispatcher to the roster, which the commission approved. Mechaley said the dispatch office will likely have retirements coming soon and he would like to get ahead of those.