FS road maintenance costing county

By Jason Ferguson

The United States Forest Service paid Custer County $166,978.15 to maintain its roads in the county that the public travels on, also known as Schedule A roads in county highway department parlance.
Not a bad amount of money, right? Well, hold on.
At the Jan. 22 meeting of the Custer County Commission, county highway superintendent Jess Doyle presented an update to the commission that showed in 2024 the county spent nearly $1.7 million in county taxpayer money maintaining those same roads, showing that while the Forest Service does give the county some money—and free gravel—the cost of maintaining its roads still far exceeds what the county receives to do so. Of the county’s 400 miles of road, 184 are Schedule A.
Commissioner Jim Lintz asked Doyle if the county could simply submit a bill to the Forest Service for the actual cost of the maintenance, which Doyle said likely would fall on deaf ears.
“I’d love to but I’m a little fish in the sea compared to the big federal government,” he said. “You see the disparity here.”
Doyle said the county used to received over $200,000 for the work, but the amount has continued to dwindle.
“Let’s just not maintain them for a while and see how they like it,” Lintz said.
“Gosh, you guys really want to throw me under the bus,” Doyle said with a laugh.
Doyle also expressed concern about the county’s ability to access gravel in the not-too-distant future, saying there is only so much private property around to have gravel pits. There are rumors floating around about the possibility of current pits changing hands or closing altogether.
For years, Doyle said, counties had their own gravel pits and crushed their own gravel, but that changed in the 1980s when counties became more cash-strapped and had to sell their pits to put land back on the tax rolls and get extra cash.
Large corporations subsequently bought up the gravel pits and have since cornered the market on gravel, although Doyle said Custer County has been fortunate enough to be able to be able to purchase gravel at “pretty low prices” for several years.
Other counties are not as fortunate, Doyle said, as they are paying as much as $20 a ton for alluvial gravel, which Doyle said is poorer quality. Custer County currently pays $9 per ton for gravel.
“I’m coming here I’m afraid,” Doyle said. “I’m doing everything I can to try to fight that off but I’m not sure how long I can.”
Doyle said he has been working with the Forest Service in an attempt to get its Bear Mountain pit open, and the Stapp Pit was recently reopened on Forest Service land.
Doyle said gravel pits mean mining, which is a touchy subject in the area presently.
“A gravel pit is mining. Without mining we can’t keep our roads up,” he said. “I don’t want to sound like a Debbie Downer but it’s something to be concerned about in the future years. I don’t have the answers. I need your help.”
Doyle said he is proud of how much road the county crew was able to gravel in 2024, as 45.89 miles were resurfaced, while the department usually manages to fix around 40 miles per year. Roads in all parts of the county were worked on in the past year.
The county also heard from Bruce Hintz of the South Dakota Department of Legislative Audit, who presented information on the county’s 2022-23 audit. Hintz made the presentation via telephone.
Hintz said the department had some of the same findings it had in the previous audit, but said much of that is due to the time of the audit process.
Hintz said there was a $20,000 adjustment in cash controls, that “he couldn’t find.” That does not mean the money is missing, however, but rather, was likely entered into the county books improperly.
“For the amount of money and what we’ve been dealing with the last few years I didn’t take the time to look for it,” he said.
Hintz said he would be in town in the near future to help the county get 2024 books closed out and its annual report done.
Hintz also said there were some county funds that had deficit amounts, and that was due to not making the annual transfer from general fund for their operations.
“Entries are also posted ing directly to contingency,” Hintz said, saying the expense should be posted to the county department on which the money is being spent and then contingency transferred to those departments.
“The intent was there but it wasn’t all together as far as what was in the minutes versus what actually happened,” Hintz said. “It comes out of the department, then transfer the funds.”
All told there were four comments on the audit, which were a repeat from the previous audit. Compared to past years, however, Hintz said, the errors will be easy to clean up.
“There has been drastic improvement,” he said.
Also discussed at the meeting was the National Wilderness Preservation System, in which there is potentially nearly 7,000 acres of county land that the government is eyeing as potential designated Wilderness area. The lands are already part of the Black Hills National Forest.
Of those 5,142 acres are in the Hell Canyon area approximately four miles south of Jewel Cave. Another 1,677 acres are adjacent to the Black Elk Wilderness.
Further complicating matters is the “Wild and Scenic Rivers” program that could put any land visible from said waterways under the management—or lack thereof—for wilderness areas. Parts of Iron Creek, Lost Cabin Creek, Grizzly Bear Creek and Grizzly Creek are all creeks named in the report and are enitirely or partially in Custer County.
County weed and pest department manager Mike Baldwin told the commission the process for designation is long and drawn out as part of the Forest Service’s Forest Plan Revision. All of the proposed acreage could be included, or none of it. First it will go to the chief of the Forest Service before going to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and finally, Congress.
Baldwin said once “it leaves the Black Hills” and there is a list of proposed areas—even if it’s not approved by Congress—it will likely still be managed very similarly to a wilderness areas.
Commissioner Mark Hartman called the proposal—particularly the rumored viewshed aspect of the creeks—scary, saying there are farmers along the Niobrara River in Nebraska that aren’t able to build homes on their land because they could be seen from the river. It’s unclear, however, whether or not the viewshed issues that are affecting the Niobrara River situation would be the same in the Black Hills situation.
In other news from the Jan. 22 meeting, the commission:
• Approved Resolution 2025-26, which deals with transparency of public use of funds. The resolution was passed with some tweaks made from when it was discussed at the commission’s previous meting.
The resolution requires all entities that receive public funds from the county must provide certain documents each year to account for how the money is being spent. Failure to do so could jeopardize future funding form the county.
• Approved its annual animal control contract with Battle Mountain Humane Society. The cost did not raise from the previous year.
• Approved the hire of Jeremy Schuelke as a full-time deputy sheriff at the certified rate of $26.45 per hour. Custer County Sheriff Marty Mechaley said the sheriff’s office has one more deputy position available, which he hopes to be able to request be filled at the commission’s next meeting.
• Heard from planning director Terri Kester, who presented a list of the building permits issued in 2024, which was 246, up from last year but down from 279 in 2022. There were also 82 approach permits issued in 2024 (up from 61 last year) and 90 wastewater permits issued (up from 83). The county made $135,050 from 522 total permits issued in 2024.