There has been quite a bit of turnover in Sioux Falls city government over the past year when it comes to department leadership. But instead of just reacting after the dominoes fall, maybe we should look where the tumble started.

Here is the timeline;

• March 2023, Tom Greco, City Clerk, leaves the city for a job with Minnehaha County. While Tom’s job change DOES come with a raise, it also comes with a lot more responsibility. I also find it interesting that the MCC would hire a Lincoln county resident to run their commission. Tom may have moved to Minnehaha County since, but in 2017 when his wife ran for the Harrisburg School Board they lived in Lincoln County. I’m not sure why Tom left, but it was on his own accord, the council didn’t reprimand or terminate him. I do find the way MCC secretly hired and interviewed him to be highly suspicious though.

• February 2023, Stacy Kooistra, Lead City Attorney, leaves for a research facility that is receiving millions from city taxpayers for landscaping and ‘other stuff’. I could probably write an entire blog post about this departure but I know about as much as you.

• December 2022, Shawn Pritchett, Finance Director takes over as the director of IT and Technology as well as the finance department. I found this move significant. While in the past the city has moved directors around under the current charter, they have never taken a director of one department and made them also the director of another department simultaneously, especially two departments that may work closely together BUT have different functions.

• September 2022, Shana Nelson, Audit Manager, leaves the city council and begins to work for the administration in housing compliance. Rumors had been swirling since July that she was making this move but until councilor Starr brought it up in a public meeting the public was unaware. Granted, she worked for the council and made a lateral move back to the city and is still on the taxpayers dime but I think her move plays into this.

• July 2022; Mike Grisby, IT Director for the city, left the city. The city has not said what the details of his departure were but if you go to Mike’s Linkedin page you will see he is back in Kansas City where he came from and has NO mention of his city employment. Interestingly enough, Grisby did this interview in March of 2022 just a few months before leaving where he talks about the integration of different departments into IT. It’s not a bad concept (considering the administration did just that after he left).

I mention this timeline because in less then a year, since the departure of Grisby there has been major shakeups in leadership.

Grisby is one of the few directors that came to Sioux Falls with little attachment and it is NO surprise he is back in Kansas City. In other words, he had no dog in the fight and nothing grounding him here. I think his sudden departure from the city with NO explanation is where the dominoes started to fall, and I don’t think the last one has dropped yet.

Of course I am speculating, but it is pretty obvious to those looking from the outside that the administration has been circling the wagons over the past year but WHY?

I was actually surprised that large salary increases for directors were at a minimum this time around. Click on links below to view documents;

2022 salaries

2023 salaries

The list is pretty short of who got big ones. As I projected when the debate about giving the mayor a raise during the last election was floated and turned down by the voters, that due to inflation, the mayor and city council would still get very good pay increases even without voter approval.

• Mayor Paul TenHaken: $12,000+

• Angie Uthe, Assistant Director of Human Resources: $9,400+

• Kurt Peppel, Assistant City Engineer: $9,000+

• Matthew McArearey, Fire Chief, $8,400+

• Dr. Jennifer Tinguely, Chief Medical Officer: $7,800+

• Shana Nelson, former Audit Manager and now City Housing Compliance Manager went from making $90K to $97K. A $7,000 raise isn’t bad for jumping the council’s ship. Still would love to know what happened. Maybe one of these days Alex Jensen who was her direct supervisor as council chair will spill the beans, yeah right!

• Erica Beck, Mayor’s Chief of Staff: $6,000+

Speaking of directors, I have noticed lately that the city council loves to spend several minutes at each informational meeting complimenting the directors and mid-managers who are doing presentations. That’s great, and everyone appreciates a thank you when you do your job. But the gushing is out of control. Many directors receive at least a 6-figure salary, a pension and other benefits. They are well compensated for ‘doing their jobs’. A simple ‘Thank You’ should suffice. Selberg, Jensen and Soehl are the worst of the bunch (Barranco is even joining the ‘your so wonderful’ crowd). Like I said, everyone deserves a thank you for a job well done, but the plump paychecks these public employees are taking home should be thanks enough.

I also find it ironic considering the piss poor job the engineering department did on vetting the bid for the 6th Street Unity Bridge and the fact that Council Chair Soehl is continually bitching about how long the meetings can go. Maybe grab director Bob in the hallway and tell him thank you after the meeting instead blowing smoke and gobbling up time with your requiems of appreciation.

Patrick Lalley of Siouxfallslive.com wrote an interesting article about how the city council doesn’t have any staff advocates, I’m not sure that is the problem;

The council has some research and legislative assistance. They may need more of an ombudsperson who advocates on their behalf.

The city council has three full-time clerks, an operations manager and and legislative person, I am not sure they need more (I have even suggested they cut back to 2 clerks and an operations person).

The problem is council vice-chair Jensen and chair Soehl who were both re-elected by their peers last year to the same positions. Their main responsibility is to be the connection between the mayor’s office and the council, not only negotiating with the administration but informing the rest of the council what is in the pipeline.

In fact we still have gotten NO reason why Shana Nelson left as Audit Manager (she was appointed in a public meeting) and joined the administration as a Housing Compliance Manager (which garnered her a $7,000 raise).

Not only has council leadership failed the council when it comes to transparency but they have failed the constituents also.

I would suggest the rest of the city council hold a special election and appoint Starr as chair and Merkouris as vice-chair and get some adults in those seats.

I remember when we were told how incredible our liquor cart boy Technology Manager was going to be and there was push back from concerned councilors. He got hired anyway. Then he left, and recently his replacement left. You know, all that ‘building a team’ bullsh!t Paul feeds us.

Remember when we were told how great this person would be as our internal auditor even with push back from city councilors.

Now I am not sure if Shana Nelson is quitting the position, but I find the above employment listing interesting since I thought they were fully staffed in the auditors office.

But I do know that while her and her husband Matt Nelson (parking director) are full-time paid directors with the city they are also owners of a very busy pet store franchise. So how is it that you can both work as full-time city managers and manage a retail business? At least we can’t accuse them of drinking at 3’O Clock in the afternoon at a DTSF bar on a weekday like two other directors were a couple of weeks ago (yeah, I saw you Ron Swanson).

Like I said, I am only speculating that there will be turnover in the Auditor’s office, again, but if it is true maybe this time they will actually do a national search for someone who is qualified to run an auditor’s office, or at least one that actually does audits.

So we hire someone with (several) conflicts of interest and we have to make new ordinances to tamp them down. Dumb.

Guidelines for dealing with conflicts of interests between auditors and city staff who oversee parking first need to be in place, said Councilor Greg Neitzert, who chairs the city’s audit committee.

“First we need to get the conflict of interest policy in place. Then you can start the process of who’s going to run point on (an audit),” Neitzert said. 

When Shana Nelson was hired as internal audit manager for the city last year, officials stated then that should the parking system ever be audited, Nelson wouldn’t be a part of that work. Nelson is married to Sioux Falls Parking Manager Matt Nelson.

Gee, Councilor ‘Friends and Family Plan’ wasn’t this brought up when we were basically moving Shana from one department to another? It seems we will never get to the bottom of what the Hell is going on with the parking department and Bunker Ramp.

I’m not sure a policy needs to be in place, maybe we should just hire someone who doesn’t have a conflict. Though I will admit that I have been impressed with Shana’s professionalism in the audits she has presented so far. Maybe she really is a ‘Rock Star’?

I have also been made aware that Greg pulled this from his sanitized butt and other councilors/members on the audit committee had no idea he was going to propose this and first found out about it reading the article.

Like the hiring of Nelson, I guess Greg thinks the audit committee is his little dictatorship. It’s good to be King.