County Commissioners address insurance, audit, and HR Software

The Lincoln County Commission met Tuesday, Sept. 26 in the Lincoln County Boardroom. Commissioners voted on agenda items brought before them including

Mark Jensen of Jensen Insurance joined the meeting for board discussion and action to approve the renewal of insurance with Jensen Insurance. The County has used Jensen insurance for the past 44 years.

“During all those years we’ve been insured with EMC (Employers Mutual Company) which is the same company that we formed a safety dividend program with back in the early 90’s which allows us to really have the best of both worlds. They are an A rated company which gives us the stability and also allows that company to focus in on this class of business of counties. We’re the managing general agency and we have about 18 counties in the program today,” he said.

EMC insures counties and public entities in all 50 states and specialize in offering benefits to those in counties, cities and schools. Jensen informed the board that the biggest issue the county is facing is the automotive side of the insurance coverage. The main reason for the increase is claims from the Sheriff and Highway Department.

Commissioner Jim Jibben asked what would happen if they renewed the policy, but the claim numbers did not decrease in the upcoming year.

“If we don’t get this cleaned up this year, we could have real trouble next year. The problem is, with these kinds of loss ratios, we’d be going into the marketplace, it is very difficult, and we’d be going into nonstandard markets to try and piece it together,” Jensen said.

Commissioner Joel Arends asked what the increased dollar amount would be for the renewal.

“As far as premium to premium, it will be an increase of $85,000,” Jensen said. Motion approved.

David Weidler of the South Dakota Legislative Audit approached the board to get approval to execute the letter of engagement with the South Dakota Department of Legislative Audit for the audit covering the period of January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2022.

“It is pretty much the same as last year, there is more additional language regarding the Federal Grant portion that we are going to have to do this year. Our audit objectives will give an opinion on your statements, your schedules of expenditures on Federal Awards, and other information given in your financial statements. It also talks about some of the responsibilities of management regarding the internal controls of the county and identifying any Federal Grant programs that we may need information for,” Weidler said.

The billable rate for the audit will be based off the current rate which is $74 per hour. Hourly rate does not include travel time to the courthouse. With no questions or comment, motion approved.

The first reading for an Ordinance of Lincoln County, SD, amending the Revised Zoning Ordinance for Lincoln County by rezoning Tract 2, Slack’s Addition, N1/2 NE1/4, Section 9-T99N-R49W, Dayton Township, from the A-1 Agricultural District to the RR Rural Residential District. The Planning Commission recommends denial.

Director of IT, Jake Oakland requested board action to execute and agreement with ADP for Human Resource and payroll software.

“It’s come to our attention that we wanted to keep a little bit more efficiencies with our employee management and our human resources director did a lot of research and found a bunch of options and we’ve narrowed it down to ADP so we are looking to get that signed we had a meeting with Commission office, the IT office and the auditor’s office along with human resources and thought this was the best option so if this contract is signed it’ll cost the county $39,217.00 for a three-year agreement with an $11,840 charge for implementation this project is budgeted in the 2024 budget, and there should be a cost shift because all of the other softwares that we have will be discontinued,” he said. Motion approved.