Rapid City SD – Somewhere at the Mountain View Water Treatment Plant sits a Hyster forklift so old the city’s own surplus form lists its year as “pre 1957?” It still runs, the form says, but it isn’t safe, and it’s headed to auction.
That forklift is one of 14 items before Rapid City’s Legal & Finance Committee on Wednesday, Oct. 14.
The bigger money is in two supplemental appropriation ordinances that together move $13,334,183.81.
One of them is the second reading of the $7.2 million budget change that set up the Sports Complex fund.
The other is a new $6.1 million carryforward of purchase orders from 2025, arriving ten months into 2026.
When and where
The committee meets at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, in Council Chambers at the City Hall Administration Center, 300 Sixth St. Most items then go to the full City Council on Monday, Oct. 19.
The agenda is split in two. Items 1 through 10 are the consent calendar, approved together in a single vote unless a member pulls one out for discussion. Items 11 through 14 are non-consent and are taken up one at a time.
The public can speak three times: during general public comment on anything not on the agenda, before the consent vote, and before the non-consent items. Matters not on the agenda can’t be acted on unless every member present votes to add them.
Consent items (1–10)
1) Minutes for Sept. 30, 2026
2) LF101426-04 — Property tax abatement from the Director of Equalization
One abatement this round: $14,887.86 in 2025 property taxes for the Adult Day Center of the Black Hills, 4110 Winfield St.
The county granted the property a tax exemption starting with the 2026 assessment. The center says it owned and used the building all of 2025, so it is asking for that year too.
The timing: Pennington County’s cover letter is dated Sept. 1. It cites state law (SDCL 10-18-7): if the city doesn’t return the signed original within 30 days of receiving it, the city is treated as having agreed.
The item reaches Council on Oct. 19, more than 30 days after the letter’s date. The packet doesn’t say when the city received it. The agenda item’s “Funding Source & Fiscal Impact” table is blank.
3) LF101426-05 — $7,500 Spearfish grant for RSVP
The City of Spearfish, through the South Dakota Community Foundation, is giving $7,500 to West River RSVP, a volunteer program for people 55 and older. Rapid City has sponsored and administered it since 2020. The application counts 157 volunteers and 11 volunteer stations in Spearfish, and about 565 volunteers across 12 West River counties.
The federal grant behind RSVP requires a $14,500 local match for 2027. Per the application, Rapid City covers more than $13,000 of that in-kind through rent, accounting, and salaries and benefits.
In the paperwork: The award letter, addressed to Rapid City’s RSVP program, says the grant went to “Good Shepherd Clinic Inc.”
4) LF101426-07 — Nuisance abatement assessments (Res. 2026-068)
When a property owner doesn’t fix a code violation, the city hires the work done and bills the owner. This roll covers 16 properties totaling $19,674.43. Bills not paid within 30 days go to the county as a lien with statutory interest.
The largest are two hazard-tree removals: $6,150 at 1301 N. Seventh St. and $4,353 at 1406 Minuteman Dr., owned by Guardian Tax SD LLC. Most of the rest are tall grass, weeds and trash.
At $270, LaCrosse Estates (761 E. Anamosa St.) is listed under “Tzadik LaCrosse Apartments.” The bill is for rounding up Walmart shopping carts. The city’s case history describes “an ongoing relationship” with Tzadik management to clean up its properties. It lists seven notices at that complex since May 2024, for a burned-out vehicle, trash, debris and tall grass.
5) LF101426-08 — Surplus property (Res. 2026-079)
Two pieces of equipment go out:
- A 2015 John Deere 244K wheel loader from the solid waste materials recovery facility, with 6,067 hours. It needs $11,684.14 in identified repairs, with electrical work not yet estimated. It will be traded in toward a replacement estimated at $130,880.
- A Hyster QC-20 forklift from the Mountain View Water Treatment Plant. Its year is listed as “pre 1957?” and hours as unknown. It has already been replaced. The form says it doesn’t meet safety requirements and no city department should take it. It goes to auction.
6) LF101426-02 — $35,448.75 hazardous materials training grant
The Fire Department would accept a U.S. Department of Transportation Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) grant, passed through the state Office of Emergency Management.
It pays for hazmat training and conferences. It is reimbursement-based, so the city spends first and submits receipts. It requires at least a 20% match, which volunteer training time can count toward.
In the paperwork: The state’s award letter is dated Oct. 2, 2025, but asks for signed documents by Oct. 16, 2026. The attached federal terms (Exhibit B) are labeled Fiscal Year 2017, for a “2016 PHMSA HMEP Grant.”
7) LF101426-03 — Ambulance service contract with Summerset for 2027
Rapid City Fire would provide ambulance service to Summerset from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2027. The contract doesn’t renew automatically. Summerset would pay $77,565, billed in four quarterly installments.
The fire department can also bill patients and their insurers for each call.
Coverage includes all of Summerset’s city limits except areas inside the Piedmont Ambulance District or any other ambulance district.
Calls are routed through Pennington County 911. Either city can end the deal with 90 days’ notice, and Summerset would pay a prorated $212.51 for each day of service.
Summerset’s mayor, Michael Kitzmiller, and finance officer, Lisa Fischer, signed it Sept. 17. The Rapid City signature lines are still blank.
In the paperwork: The notice section lists Summerset’s address as “7055 Leisure Lane, Rapid City, SD 57718.” Page 1 gives the same street as Summerset, and Summerset’s “Attn” and copy-to lines are blank. The template’s notary county was printed as Pennington and corrected by hand to Meade.
8) LF101426-06 — New ambulance, $182,700
The Fire Department wants a new Crestline Type III ambulance on a Ford E350 chassis, bought from MacQueen through SAVVIK cooperative purchasing pricing.
That pricing is pre-negotiated, so there is no separate bid. Delivery would take two to four months. The quote is good through Nov. 1. The price doesn’t include graphics or Stryker equipment.
The new unit replaces an aging frontline ambulance, which moves to reserve. It isn’t in the current capital improvement budget. The purchase form says it will be paid from the department’s wildland fund.
9) LF101426-11 — Transit pay raise (AFSCME Third Amendment)
This amends the city’s contract with AFSCME Local 1031 to raise pay for Rapid Transit bus operators and dispatchers.
Human Resources finished a compensation study in February. The new pay scales were expected in the next contract, with talks to start in June.
The union postponed those talks, so the city and union are making the change by amendment instead. The current contract runs through Dec. 31, 2026.
Under the new scale, operators and dispatchers share one range:
| Position | Current range | New range | Change at top of range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rapid Transit Operator | $41,980.70–$55,753.27 | $46,250.00–$62,437.50 | +12.0% |
| Rapid Transit Dispatcher | $46,247.28–$57,168.94 | $46,250.00–$62,437.50 | +9.2% |
The operator starting wage rises 10.2%. The dispatcher starting wage is essentially unchanged.
10) LF101426-09 — Parking meter warranty, $33,000
This is a one-year warranty extension from IPS Group for the city’s 660 single-space parking meters, at $50 per meter. The previous warranty has already lapsed. The new one is backdated to Oct. 1 and runs through Sept. 30, 2027. It covers parts, not on-site labor.
In the paperwork: On the staff memo, the “DATE” line reads “IPS Warranty Extension.” The memo has no date.
Non-consent items (11–14)
11) LF101426-12 — Mosquito surveillance and testing update, Dr. Christine Mathews
This is a presentation, with no vote. Working with the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the city bought equipment to trap mosquitoes inside city limits and test them for diseases such as West Nile virus. 2026 is the first year of testing in-house.
The agenda item’s funding table is blank. The money shows up elsewhere: Supplemental Appropriation No. 4 (item 14) gives Parks $10,268.26 for mosquito control and lists a “ramp reader for mosquito testing” among its purchases.
12) LF101426-10 — Contested tree-trimming bill at 220 E. Watertown St.
Property owner Don Hamm, who rents out the house, is challenging an $890 abatement bill. On May 6, Code Enforcement mailed him two notices. One covered junk vehicles and debris, which he cleared. The other ordered branches over the street and sidewalk along Milwaukee Street trimmed by May 20. The city says that one was ignored, so it sent a contractor. North Forty Landscaping billed the city $840 on July 21 to cut, trim and haul the branches.
Per Code Enforcement Division Manager John Olson’s memo, Hamm says he never got the tree notice and that the tree isn’t his responsibility. He also says he’s being overcharged: photos show about an hour of trimming, and he doesn’t think he should pay for travel, setup, equipment and disposal.
Olson offered to cut the bill to $600, with the city absorbing $290. Hamm refused and brought it to the committee. The city’s case history lists five earlier notices at the property going back to 2014.
The deadline question: Olson’s memo says city ordinance gives an owner 7 days to contest a notice. The tree notice itself gives 5 calendar days to appeal. The junk-vehicle notice, mailed the same day, gives 10.
13) LF101426-01 — Supplemental Appropriation No. 5 (Ord. 6754), first reading: $6,131,686.58
The city’s only explanation for this ordinance is one sentence: all items are carryforward or open purchase orders from 2025.
It splits into $3.2 million for governmental funds and $2.9 million for enterprise funds like water and solid waste. All of it comes from existing cash.
What a carryforward is: When the city orders something in one year but doesn’t receive it by Dec. 31, the budget authority for it lapses.
The money has to be appropriated again the next year before the bill can be paid. That’s routine.
What stands out here is the timing. In past years, Rapid City carried prior-year purchase orders forward in its first supplemental of the year. In 2015 that went to Council in January, and in 2025, in April. This year the 2025 orders arrive in the fifth supplemental, in October.
The largest pieces:
- $1,217,087.23 for General Fund vehicles in the capital construction fund
- $967,807.78 for solid waste collection and $924,837.65 for the landfill, mostly machinery and equipment
- $742,204.88 for the water fund
- $577,388.10 from the TID 83 Homestead tax increment fund, coded “furniture & minor equipment”
- $139,498.72 from the Vision Fund, under the same code
The ordinance doesn’t say what the TID 83 purchase order buys. Tax increment money is normally limited to the costs in a district’s project plan, and “furniture & minor equipment” is an unusual code for it.
For context, the city’s draft FY2025 audit reported a repeat material weakness in year-end accounting adjustments, including a misstated tax increment district fund the auditors didn’t name.
14) LF093026-09 — Supplemental Appropriation No. 4 (Ord. 6750), second reading: $7,202,497.23
This is the ordinance that creates the Sports Complex fund with $6,654,692.26 moved in from three places:
- $5,000,000 from the Vision Fund
- $897,025.06 from the Hotel BID No. 2 fund, the hotel-tax district set up to finance the complex
- $757,667.20 from the TID 101 Catalyst District fund
It also lists a $575,000 transfer from the General Fund to TID 99 (Marshall Heights), with no explanation in the ordinance, and $178,797.08 for an unbudgeted “refund for Stoney Creek Reserve.” The ordinance’s sections jump from III to V; there is no Section IV.
Together, items 13 and 14 put $13,334,183.81 in budget changes in front of the committee in one sitting, and about $1.9 million of it involves three tax increment districts (TID 83, 99 and 101).
In the paperwork
Agenda packets are the public’s record of what the city is approving. This one has a run of errors and blanks:
- RSVP grant (item 3): The award letter to Rapid City’s RSVP program says the grant went to “Good Shepherd Clinic Inc.” The application gives the program’s total volunteers as “over 560” in one section and “over 565” in another.
- Hazmat grant (item 6): The award letter is dated Oct. 2, 2025, with an Oct. 16, 2026 deadline. The attached federal terms are for FY2017.
- Summerset contract (item 7): The notice section puts Summerset’s address in “Rapid City,” and Summerset’s contact lines are blank.
- Tree appeal (item 12): The appeal window is listed three ways: 5 days on the tree notice, 10 days on the same-day junk notice, and 7 days in the manager’s memo. The memo is dated May 8, 2025, but describes events from May 2026. It says the notices went out May 5; the notices themselves are dated May 6. The tree notice’s letterhead gives the division’s address as 333 Sixth St.; the rest of the paperwork says 300 Sixth St.
- Nuisance roll (item 4): The case history for LaCrosse Estates gives one notice date as “06-01-26-26” and refers to “over 20 shopping cars.” The photo pages label 1825 Brentwood as “St.”; the assessment roll and history say “Dr.”
- Parking warranty (item 10): The memo’s date line holds the subject instead of a date.
- New ambulance (item 8): On the asset-addition form, the year and make/model are blank.
- Abatement and mosquito items (items 2 and 11): Both agenda summaries leave the “Funding Source & Fiscal Impact” table empty.
- Supplemental No. 4 (item 14): The ordinance skips from Section III to Section V.
- Supplemental No. 5 (item 13): $6.1 million is explained in a single sentence.
Sourcing
This preview is based on the City of Rapid City’s posted Oct. 14, 2026 Legal & Finance Committee agenda and packet documents on rcgov.org. Those include Ordinances 6750 and 6754, Resolutions 2026-068 and 2026-079, the AFSCME Third Amendment, the Code Enforcement case files and notices for 220 E. Watertown St., the Summerset ambulance agreement, the IPS proposal, the MacQueen ambulance proposal and purchasing authority, the state HMEP award letter and Exhibit B, the South Dakota Community Foundation award letter and RSVP application, and the Pennington County abatement letter and application. Past carryforward timing comes from the city’s own records: Supplemental Appropriation No. 1 for 2025 (LF040225-13) and the Ord. 6030 memo, Supplemental Appropriation No. 1 for 2015. Percentages in the transit pay table were calculated by the Sentinel from the old and new scales in the amendment.
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