Minutes of the Annual Meeting Southern Black Hills Water System Board (Provisional)
Pringle Community Hall, Pringle, South Dakota
Thursday, October 24, 2024
The Annual Meeting of the Southern Black Hills Water System was held at the Pringle Community Hall, Pringle, South Dakota on Thursday, October 19, 2023.
Chairman Ted Wick called the meeting to order at approximately 6:30 p.m.
ROLL CALL - Attending were 4 board members who are system users, the signin list included 70 people representing 50 other system users attending the meeting. That is sufficient for a quorum.
MINUTES - Motion by D Musser and 2nd by R Varns to approve the minutes of last year’s meeting held on October 9, 2023. Motion passed unanimously.
ELECTION - This year there were two open member seats for the board in 2025. Three petitions were taken out and returned by Brandon Nase, Leeann Baker, and Ronnie Varns. The election process was administered by a team from Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore led by SBHWS legal counsel Talbot Wieczorek; the team verified and reconciled proxy statements accompanying the submitted ballots. The results were 102 votes for Nase, 101 votes for Baker, and 94 votes for Varns; Nase and Baker will start their three year terms in January.
Auditors Report - Jordan Jones from Ketel-Thorstenson presented the 2023 Financial Summary-Modified Cash Basis. He answered questions from the Board of Directors and from individuals attending the meeting.
Managers’ Report
System Manager Don Peterson presented the Manager report.
Water Rates
The board has not yet finalized a budget for 2025, but has no reason to believe that water rates for 2025 will differ from those proposed in the Projected Rate Schedule report.
Members Comments
Pringle Community Hall, Pringle, South Dakota
Thursday, October 24, 2024
The Annual Meeting of the Southern Black Hills Water System was held at the Pringle Community Hall, Pringle, South Dakota on Thursday, October 19, 2023.
Chairman Ted Wick called the meeting to order at approximately 6:30 p.m.
ROLL CALL - Attending were 4 board members who are system users, the signin list included 70 people representing 50 other system users attending the meeting. That is sufficient for a quorum.
MINUTES - Motion by D Musser and 2nd by R Varns to approve the minutes of last year’s meeting held on October 9, 2023. Motion passed unanimously.
ELECTION - This year there were two open member seats for the board in 2025. Three petitions were taken out and returned by Brandon Nase, Leeann Baker, and Ronnie Varns. The election process was administered by a team from Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore led by SBHWS legal counsel Talbot Wieczorek; the team verified and reconciled proxy statements accompanying the submitted ballots. The results were 102 votes for Nase, 101 votes for Baker, and 94 votes for Varns; Nase and Baker will start their three year terms in January.
Auditors Report - Jordan Jones from Ketel-Thorstenson presented the 2023 Financial Summary-Modified Cash Basis. He answered questions from the Board of Directors and from individuals attending the meeting.
Managers’ Report
System Manager Don Peterson presented the Manager report.
- The forms for customer notification of water service issues have been entered and an initial test of the IRIS notification system was conducted in early October. Some recipients were confused as to the source of the messages and changes in the notification process are being made to eliminate or mitigate the confusion.
- The 2023 DANR Secretary’s Award for Drinking Water Excellence was presented. The DANR certificate identifies and rewards those water systems and their operation specialists that have demonstrated excellence in water system management and maintenance; this is the 12th year in a row that SBHWS has been received this award.
- The board of SBHWS has released a report from its budget committee titled “Projected Rate Schedule”. This report covers issues impinging on water rates and fees, and the budget committee’s extrapolation of expected rates over the next ten years. This report can be found on the SBHWS website and copies were also provided at the meeting.
- The board has adopted a Developer Process Outline setting forth a process established by SHBWS for analyzing and potentially including future developments into the system. Some revisions to the existing developer policy described in PB 200 and PB 305 are underway in coordination with the Developer Process Outline.
- Water sales through September of this year were 20,141,600 gallons, up compared to the 15,868,200 gallons sold in 2023 through September.
- SBHWS has a membership in the Western Dakota Regional Water System, which is an effort to bring Missouri River water to Black Hills communities to address future demands for water. SHBWS’s annual membership fee is $1500. SBHWS has been and will continue to be involved in planning activities with WDRWS.
Water Rates
The board has not yet finalized a budget for 2025, but has no reason to believe that water rates for 2025 will differ from those proposed in the Projected Rate Schedule report.
Members Comments
- One member noted he had been billed for a usage meter reading of 77,000 gallons. Management offered to check out the meter.
- There was a query about what additional costs will SBHWS incur in its relation with WDRWS. At present, the only cost is the membership fee. In the future, WDRWS wants to be able to provide water to southern Black Hills municipalities and looks to be funding additional SBHWS lines to extend the water delivery infrastructure necessary for the success of the WDRWS project.
- There was a request to limit the gradual three percent per annum raise in base fees discussed in the Projected Rate Schedule. The experience of other water systems has been that forgoing gradual rate increases results in later urgent larger and sharper increases in order to maintain the financial health of the system.
