Lincoln County Commissioners discuss strategic planning, insurance, and infrastructure improvements

The Lincoln County Commissioners met Tuesday, September 24 in the Lincoln County Boardroom. Commissioners heard agenda items including strategic planning talks, insurance discussions and road improvements.

Assistant Commission Administrative Assistant, Paul Anderson introduced John Beranek from Intersections Consulting to give a presentation on strategic planning. 

“Strategic planning, to me, is one of those things that can be misunderstood about what it is people want to do. To me, the end result is what is the implementation, not just what’s the plan that you put together,” he said. 

Beranek is hoping to bring the community together for more engagement and listening sessions to allow the public to make their concerns before moving into a smaller, strategic planning team. 

“We researched the iceberg theory, we talk about what are some of those things happening in the community, what’s the pattern and trends around them, can we get underneath those underlying structures around it and then what is the mental shift mindset that needs to occur in order to go back up that other side to transform out thinking, design differently, begin to anticipate the problems or issues, and find a wise solution rather than just reacting quickly over and over and over,” he said.

Commissioner Jim Schmidt asked Beranek how he plans to incorporate the other towns in Lincoln County into the plan when they each have plans for their own futures. 

“In the early part of this process we’re collecting data, what is the plan that Hudson has, what are other communities doing for baseline data, for some information, and awareness. The other thing is those listening sessions and the third thing is the design team and what do we think we need to do to get to those people who are our champions,” Beranek responded. 

With no board action needed, the Commissioners thanked Beranek for his time. Although no motion was made, Chairman Jim Jibben opened the floor to public comment on the matter. 

Mark Noordsy took to the podium. 

“I live in Northern Lincoln County, Southern Sioux Falls, so I’m part of that constituency. I want to first thank you and applaud you for going ahead with strategic planning, it’s a passion of mine as well and I think it’s very important for Lincoln County to do that. I was heartened to hear today that the heart of this thing is an implementation plan. That’s always the hardest part, it rarely gets done, so it’s important that the effort is put into the implementation and I was also excited to hear about metrics, that drives accountability and without that, you just have a pretty binder on the shelf. The other thing, when they talked about public input, when John talked about how he was going to get public input, I thought it was very important however you chose to do it, Mr. Schmidt’s ideas about towns and townships, that’s incredible thinking. But some rhetorical questions, is this in the budget? Have you established guidelines as you seek to engage John, how much are you going to allow to be spent? As you go through some of these initiatives, they’re going to cost money, they’re not going to be free, or free in employee time,” he said.

Auditor, Sheri Lund joined the meeting for board action to approve the South Dakota Public Assurance Alliance as the County’s property and liability coverage carrier and to authorize the chair to execute an agreement with the Alliance. 

“We discussed the property and liability coverage so today we’re here to decide which way we’re going to go,” Lund said. 

Zach Jensen from South Dakota Public Assurance Alliance (SDPAA) was present to answer any questions from the commission.

 “As I mentioned last time, EMC has had some struggles in the industry and over the last few months putting a proposal together and where things are at now, they’ve provided everything except an auto proposal and an umbrella proposal. We’ve had a few auto losses so that portion has been struggling, property as well, but they did provide a property renewal,” he said. 

The first choice the commission needed to make was to decide if they wanted to join the insurance pool and if they wanted to stay with the $6 million liability limits.

Commissioner Schmidt requested to delay a week so all commission members would be present for the vote, motion failed to get a second and died. 

Commissioner Joel Arends made a motion to enter into agreement with the SDPAA but with no second, the motion also failed. With no action being taken, the item will be moved to the next meeting.

Auditor Lund gave a presentation regarding the 2025 Lincoln County Budget and budget process. “On September 10 we passed the 2025 budget, so today I just wanted to look at preparation for 2026. Realizing that we do have six months prior to the 2026 budget discussions, but since we have it fresh in our minds, I would like to do a little review of the budget session. My questions would be what worked during that 2025 budget and what did not,” she asked. 

With no feedback, Lund requested committees be set up for future budget items. The two committees would be made up of two commissioners, a representative from the State’s Attorney’s Office, a representative from the auditor’s office, human resources, and the judiciary. 

“The committee would collect information and present options to Lincoln County to decide the future of Lincoln County’s Public Defenders office,” she said. 

The board agreed that it was something that needed to be looked into and put it as an agenda item for the next meeting.

Chief Civil Deputy State’s Attorney, Drew DeGroot joined the meeting for board action to co-sponsor the City of Canton’s application to be placed on the State Water Plan and authorize the chair to execute the application. 

“Previously the board action has been that the board has committed $725,000 to the improvements of Northwest Avenue in partnership with the City of Canton. We’re looking to maximize our dollars, to put it bluntly. We want to try and do whatever we can, we’ve already committed to improving that road, but what can we do to maximize our dollars and make that road and entrance into the county Justice Center even better. This will start the process of allowing us to seek additional funds with the City of Canton to possibly beef up that road,” he said. Motion approved.

DeGroot also asked for board action to approve the bid package from American Engineering Testing, Inc. for the acceptance testing services at the Marv Skie/Lincoln County Airport. 

“This is a budgeted item of $5,000, this is also reimbursable through the IP grant,” he said. 

Motion approved.