By Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – With state employees scheduled to get a 6% raise after the new budget just passed in Pierre, this week, the Minnehaha County Commission did even better by authorizing a 7% raise for county workers.
County Human Resources Director Carey Deaver explained that there had been many people leaving over the past year.
Just in 2021, the county lost 39% of its employees, she said.
Then the commissioners voted to also increase the contract with law enforcement by renegotiating the contract with the sheriff’s office and jail.
Since this group is union, under the Deputies’ Association, their contract and pay schedule is handled separately, but due to the other raises, the same pay increase was looked at there, as well.
So again, on a 5-0 vote, commissioners amended the 2022 deputies’ contact to allow for 7% raises starting April 2.
Commissioners first voted 5-0 to change the county employee manual to reflect this change. The 7% raise to the pay matrix was the heart of the change, but it also included changes to other aspects of the pay scale.
Fascinating facts about death
In his annual briefing to the commission, Minnehaha County Coroner Dr. Ken Snell went over some of the numbers his office saw last year.
Snell reported that 822 Minnehaha County cases were reported to his office. In those, it was up to the coroner to rule as to the death, but not all of them would result in there being suspicions to warrant examinations.
Overall, Snell’s office had 172 examinations in 2021, 108 full autopsies and 64 external examinations.
An external examination may be all that is needed when law enforcement and the coroner’s office agree on a cause of death. If there is a question as to that cause, or the possibility exists of unknown circumstances, a full autopsy is done.
Snell said he was glad to say that there was a drop in the overall number of deaths referred to the county coroner and gave specific figures on what his office dealt with, including the top five seen: 36 drug-related deaths, 18 alcohol, 16 heart/cardiovascular, 15 gunshot wounds, and traffic deaths and respiratory deaths tied at 12 each.
He further detailed that 27 county deaths were ruled as suicides (compared to 31 suicides in 2020). Deaths by gunshot, hanging and drugs were the most common in that category.
Infant deaths, another category seen by the coroner’s office was also down, but Snell emphasized that any in this group was too many.
A total of six infant deaths were dealt with by coroner. Of those, three were caused by “bed sharing” – where the parent and child were sleeping on the same surface, two were classified as “undetermined” (SIDS), and one was listed as a homicide by traumatic head injury.
Because of the drop in cases in 2021, Snell said he was expecting an uptick in cases this year. Coupled with the current increase in costs, he told commissioners he may come back to them asking for more money for the 2023 budget year.
Letter deferred
Although at the March 15 meeting, commissioners said they would vote on the wording of a letter to the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission on the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, at the urging of Deputy State’s Attorney Eric Bogue, they decided to again defer the matter until their next meeting on April 5.
Bogue suggested they do this in order to include more public comments along with any letter from the commission.
While they originally thought to have the letter done before the PUC met in Sioux Falls on Wednesday, March 23, Bogue pointed out that since the public comment period was open into April, there would be plenty of time for the county to gather more comments and send the letter after their next meeting.
Comments can also be sent by email to .
The next meeting of the county commission on April 5 will be held on the second floor of the Minnehaha County Administration Building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
