Commissioners accept legislative audit report after adding note about payroll irregularity

Pennington County commissioners voted Sept. 16 to accept the South Dakota Legislative Audit report for the county with an additional paragraph attached that records concerns raised by the chair about internal controls surrounding payroll time-of-service payments. The audit presentation by Bruce Hintz was described by staff as a clean audit with observations. During debate several commissioners pressed for an explicit record noting a reported irregularity — time-of-service payments for elected officials that county staff and the county state's attorney had previously flagged. One commissioner moved to sign the auditor's report but add an attached memo stating the chairman had reported concerns about payroll/time-of-service internal controls. The motion received a 3–2 vote; supporters said the note preserved a record of commissioners’ concerns without asserting wrongdoing, while opponents said the auditor had already issued his report and that the commission should not be used to make allegations. Separately earlier in the meeting, Commissioner Drews had asked staff to review video for a previous meeting where minutes contained contradictory vote tallies for a conditional use permit; staff agreed to verify the record and the board voted to strike an incorrect “unanimous” notation from those minutes. What’s next: staff will append the requested memo to the audit report records and will verify the minutes discrepancy by reviewing recorded video, then return corrected minutes for formal approval at a subsequent meeting.