County freezes hiring temporarily

Creative ways to cut. That seemed to be the sentiment of the Pennington County Commissioners when they met Aug. 19 to discuss the 2026 provisional budget, among other things. 
Commissioner Jerry Derr’s sentiment seemed to be in favor of consolidating services by means of finding commonalities in certain county positions.
“One of the biggest issues that I’ve seen coming in is trying to get a handle on our personnel and what those costs are,” Derr said. 
He said departments have internal “policies related to personnel pay and benefits that have not been approved by commissioners.” 
Derr wanted commissioners to consider the  Human Resources (HR) department as “being in charge of HR throughout the county.”
Pennington County HR  director Carol Bancroft came under scrutiny at one point in the meeting for her role in the recent county wage scale changes, ones that were called “unsustainable” by commissioner Deb Hadcock. Hadcock said the county was going to fix compression and job descriptions. 
“I kept saying, ‘We can’t do that wage scale because it’s not sustainable,’” she said. 
Hadcock said no one listened. She wanted to see the department heads have an understanding of what needs to be cut and why.
Commissioner Gary Drewes said the action the commissioners took was recommendations coming from Bancroft. 
“We continually heard we were getting away from the compression piece,” said Drewes.
Bancroft said the next step in the process is to see if the county has the right positions in place. 
She said some departments allow for vertical and horizontal movement on the wage scale, coming in at a certain wage and then getting promoted and moved into a higher wage scale, where some do not. 
“We’ve got to clean that up. We really do,” Bancroft said.
County commissioners discussed two motions: one  for pay adjustments and job classification changes and  one for enacting a temporary hiring freeze in an effort to balance the budget.  Commissioners need to cut a minimum of $7 million to create a balanced budget.
Hadcock supported both motions, saying this “stuff needs to stop for now” to “stop the bleed.”
Derr said the largest driver of pay increases is personnel and that there is no consistent policy regarding employee and pay benefits county-wide, giving an example of there being no county-wide probationary period, but rather periods that are unique per department. 
Derr said trying to understand the personnel situation in the county “has been a little bit frustrating.”  He drew a very simple line in the sand, saying “Every FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) in the county, every employee, there needs to be a finite number of job titles, job descriptions with employees linked to that so when you go down to your wage scale, you can budget appropriately.”
Commissioners heard from various department heads regarding the two motions, with some encouraging commissioners not to approve the motion.
Derr repeatedly stressed there was room for anomalies in departments. Drewes felt the main issue  was for HR to develop a policy moving forward and was not in favor of micromanaging departments. 
“Our position is to create a budget that works for the people and works for the services of the county,” said chair Ron Weifenbach.
Hadcock motioned that, effective immediately, all processes for pay adjustments resulting in wage increases be temporarily modified until a comprehensive review of county policies is completed,  which was approved three to two with commissioner Ron Rossknecht and Drewes voting against it. 
Hadcock motioned for a  temporary hiring freeze which was approved four to one, opposed by Drewes.
Commissioners have to turn in a budget to the state  by Oct. 1.
The Pennington County Commission meets again Sept. 2 at 9 a.m.