By Dave Baumeister

County Correspondent

            SIOUX FALLS – In an unusual occurrence, people heard about a county budget that would be $37 million less in 2025 than it was in 2024.

            This news came at a public briefing on next year’s budget at the Tuesday, Sept. 3, Minnehaha County Commission meeting.

            The budget for 2025, which will officially be established at the Sept. 24 meeting, came in at $131 million, while the 2024 budget had been for almost $169 million.

            However, as Finance and Budget Officer Susan Beaman explained, the decrease is mainly because last year’s budget included money being set aside for construction of the new Juvenile Justice Center currently being built.

            The $131 million budget would be in line with the 2023 budget, after the county’s population increases and increases for law enforcement needs, as well as other goods and services, are figured in.

            Even though no one spoke either for or against the budget proposal, this meeting was the time for the public hearing on the matter, in order to get such input.

            When the commission has the final vote on the budget on Sept. 24, there will be time allotted for additional comments, but input this week could have been longer and have had more weight toward making any final decisions.

Lyons school property

            Kevin Hoekman from the county planning department gave a brief report for the first reading of a re-zoning matter.

            The re-zoning calls for the change of an R-1 residential zoning for the former school property in the town of Lyons to a C-commercial designation.

            In minutes from the Planning and Zoning Commission, petitioner Mike Hanten said he had been planning on building a residence there, as well as turning the property into a specialty car repair business and used car lot.

            In May, neighbors had been complaining about the poor conditions of that property, and it was shown that there were no visible improvements on the land between that time and the most recent Aug. 26 planning and zoning meeting.

            And at the meeting, members of that commission voted unanimously to recommend denying the change.

            The county commission meeting on Sept. 24 will be the second reading and final vote on this re-zoning request.

Were 24k ballots really missing?

            Last June, Auditor Leah Anderson received criticism for her report that 24,000 ballots had been missing from the 2020 vote tallies, without providing any evidence to support her claim.

            At this week’s meeting Commissioner Joe Kippley asked that Anderson be put on the agenda at the Sept. 10 meeting to explain what had happened.

            “We were under the impression we would see an auditor’s report to follow up on the claim that we were missing some 24,000 ballots from the 2020 election.” Kippley said, “and I heard that we had done further research and determined that the 24,000 votes are not missing, after all.

            “I and others would like to see those details, so I am hoping we could get a written report on that from the auditor’s office.”

            Although the commission usually doesn’t meet on the second Tuesday of the month, there will be a meeting next week, Sept. 10, since a quorum of commissioners will not be present on Sept. 17.

            The Sept. 10 meeting will be held at 9 a.m. in the third-floor meeting room of the Minnehaha County Administration Building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.