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Yankton County task force urges better financial reporting, weighs new budgeting software
Summary
A Yankton County task force recommended standardized financial reporting across departments and considered buying budgeting software to improve transparency and multi-year planning; members also raised IT- and timekeeping-cost concerns ahead of formal drafts of policies and procedures.
Members of a Yankton County task force pressed for clearer, consistent financial reporting and discussed buying budgeting software to ease year-round tracking and capital planning.
The task force’s chair opened the meeting by directing the group to begin with financial reporting. Committee members said department budgets vary in format and substance and that a single budgeting platform would help produce comparable year-to-date and multi-year views. One committee member said the software the group reviewed had interface costs of roughly "$3,000" and "2,000" and called for the subcommittee and staff to pursue demos and cost estimates.
Why it matters: standardized reporting would let commissioners and department heads compare actuals and budgets across departments, spot mismatches early and plan multi-year capital needs. Members said the current approach leaves new commissioners without an accessible, consolidated record of prior planning.
Officials also flagged related costs. A committee member said the county’s IT budget has already exceeded the amount planned for the year, noting it was set at roughly $150,000 and has already reached about $153,000, prompting proposals to defer some technology purchases or to add an on-site IT position if spending remains high.
Payroll timekeeping and staff oversight were singled out as operational gaps. The chair described the current mid-month estimating and end-of-month reconciliation process as error-prone and urged exploring timekeeping systems that show regular and overtime hours and dollar impacts at the departmental level.
On policies: the state's attorney’s office agreed to review a first set of draft policies and procedures covering capital planning, grant review and reporting, minimum fund balance and selected HR items. The chair said the drafts will be circulated to the task force ahead of the next meeting in about two weeks so members can comment before the items go to the full commission.
Next steps: staff will obtain software demos and cost estimates, prepare proposals for where capital/IT spending should fall in next year’s budget, and distribute draft policies and the requested payroll/FTE comparisons before the next session.
