SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – Within the city limits of Sioux Falls, there’s been construction work happening on six different bridge projects. 

That’s how Mark Cotter knows the budget for the city of Sioux Falls continues to grow. 

“There’s a lot of bridge work happening right now,” Cotter told KELOLAND’s Tom Hanson during this week’s Inside KELOLAND. “Probably the most bridge work we’ve ever had under way and there’s more to come.”

Along with Cotter, Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken and parks and recreation director Don Kearney spoke about the 2024 budget. You can watch the full discussion in the videos attached in the video player above.  

Roads and bridges account for 25% of the budget

Crews with the South Dakota Department of Transportation and city of Sioux Falls have been over seeing current bridge projects over Interstate 229 (North 60th Street, Benson Road and Western Avenue), Interstate 29 (41st Street diverging diamond), over 85th Street (South Veterans Parkway) and over the Big Sioux River (6th Street bridge). 

Cotter, who has served as the director of public works for Sioux Falls since 2006, spoke about the city’s proposed $145.8 million budget for highways and streets, which includes $109.5 million in capital improvement projects. In total, highways and streets make up 25% of the 2024 budget, which will be reviewed at a variety of meetings in August before seeking city council approval in September.  

“We want to make sure people have good, safe, reliable roads,” Cotter said. “We’re working closely with the development community to build them as the city expands.” 

Along with the bridge work, Cotter highlighted joint projects with the DOT for South Veterans Parkway project and future changes with interchanges at Interstate 229 with Minnesota and Cliff Avenues. 

Cotter said dry weather has helped projects happening this summer like the 6th Street bridge and the 41st Street diverging diamond remain on schedule to complete this year. 

TenHaken said he’s excited about increasing the traffic flow in the city while also making commutes in the city easier with highways and streets budget. He said South Veterans Parkway will better connect Sioux Falls with surrounding communities like Tea, Harrisburg and Brandon. 

“There’s a lot more conversations when we’re budgeting and we’re planning with those communities,” TenHaken said. “There can always be a perception that Sioux Falls has this world domination plan and that’s not the case at all.”

Alongside the major road investments, TenHaken cautioned how taking care of more roads becomes the expensive part over time. 

“Maintaining the things that you build is where the hidden costs are,” TenHaken said. “The easy part is putting in a mile road. The hard part is for the next 50 years, we have to plow it, we have to fill the potholes, we have to maintain it.” 

Sioux Falls now 121st largest city in the U.S.  

In the past five years, Sioux Falls has grown from roughly 180,000 to roughly 208,000, according to city estimates. In the past year, TenHaken noted how that’s been record pace in the history of the city and population growth leads to bigger and bigger city budgets. 

The 2024 budget is nearly $100 million more than the 2023 budget. TenHaken pointed to increases for services and goods, while taxes have remained the same. 

“We changed some fees in terms of our utilities,” TenHaken said. “We have seen a little bit of increase in fees to account for some of the wastewater expansion, the water delivery services that we need to provide to more people.” 

Over the next four years, water utility rates will increase by 19% (6% in 2024, 5% in 2025, 4% in 2026 and 4% in 2027). KELOLAND News toured both the Sioux Falls wastewater treatment plant and the water purification plant to show where the utility rate increases would go. 

The water purification plant cleans and distributes 8.1 billion gallons of water annually, while the rest of the water comes from the Lewis and Clark Regional Water System. Sioux Falls will receive the largest allotment of water from that system at 28 million gallons a day when expansion is completed. 

For wastewater, there’s more than 900 miles of sewer lines collecting wastewater in Sioux Falls and the wastewater plant treats about 18 million gallons of water and 44,000 pounds of pollution every day. 

TenHaken highlighted how infrastructure and public safety combined make up 75% of the 2024 budget. Now serving in his sixth year, TenHaken said he commonly hears how residents want to see tax dollars spent.  

“They want to spend it on police and public safety and making sure crime stays low,” TenHaken said. “They want good roads, they want good water and they want good infrastructure. A lion’s share of the budget goes into those projects.” 

TenHaken said people would have a hard time finding waste in the budget. 

“It’s a very fiscally responsible budget,” TenHaken said. “Now, when you hear $790 million, people say: ‘Wow, that’s a big number.’ But wow, we’re a big city and we’re growing. To deliver those services costs more money.” 

24 new full-time city employees 

The 2024 budget includes $2.2 million for 24 new full-time employees to work for the city. In 2023, the city added 29 new full-time employees up from 24 in 2022 and 26 in 2021. 

In total, 1,357 full-time employees worked for the city as of June 1, 2023. TenHaken said there can be a perception of a bloated government with more full-time employees but pointed out seven of the new positions are police officers. 

“We had 6-7,000 people come to the city last year. We have a formula we use to add cops,” TenHaken said. “Now, whether we can fill those positions that’s a different thing.  Police, specifically, that’s a challenging, increasingly challenging position for us to fill.” 

The Sioux Falls Police Department is currently 326 employees as of June 1, looking to grow to 333 in 2024. 

“We have a $55 million public safety training campus that will open this October,” TenHaken said. “State-of-art training campus for cops, firefighters, our first responders, our 911 dispatch center will be out there. With that comes the need for custodians and we have to take care of the property.” 

TenHaken there’s a fine line city departments try to find when adding new people between not adding extra staff or risk burning people out with too much work. 

“The leadership team in the city of Sioux Falls is very particular in only bringing staff requests, FTE requests forward when they’re absolutely critical,” TenHaken said. 

The breakdown of the 24 new full-time employees are: seven new police department positions, four new innovation and technology positions, three facilities management positions, two new planning and development positions, one new human resources position, one finance position, one new fire department position, one new highway and street position, one new storm drainage position, one new parks and recreation position, one new water department position and one new water reclamation position.

$42 million to parks and rec 

There are 81 parks managed by the city parks and recreation department, which will have a budget of $42.7 million in 2024 ($14.5 million in personnel, $12.5 million in operating costs and $15.7 million capital investments). There’s 37 miles of bike trail and six outdoor pools to maintain. 

Kearney, who has been parks and rec director since 2005, said along with Jacobson Plaza and Phase III of the River Greenway, a new quality-of-life bond is a big ticket item in the works. 

The capital program lists $6.9 million for changes at the McKennan Park pool, as well as pool replacements and park improvements at Frank Olson and Kuehn Park. 

“We’re in the process of beginning to design those facilities at McKennan (Park),” Kearney said. “Right now, we’re working with our consultants to figure out what we’re going to build at Frank Olson and Kuehn Park.” 

Kearney said the parks department is always looking at future land acquisition before development begins. 

For Phase II of the River Greenway, Kearney said bids will be submitted next week and construction will start in the next 30 days. For Jacobson Plaza, bids will go out in October, with a goal of having construction finished by Spring 2025.