Employment

Director Pay Comparisons to Sioux Falls

While Sioux Falls is the smallest in population to the comparable cities in the region and has the least number of employees, 7 out of 22 directors make the most money. Sioux Falls also is the ONLY city listed that has a Chief Medical Officer (that is not counted).

Aprox Population

Omaha – 470,000

Lincoln – 260,000

Des Moines – 215,000

Sioux Falls – 180,000

 

Aprox Number of city employees

Omaha -2244

Lincoln -1967

Des Moines – Over 6,000 (I’m having trouble confirming this number, I wonder if this includes temp and PT and some cross over into the suburbs and county)

Sioux Falls – 1202

 

Director Pay (Yearly salary based on approximates from 2015-2018 rounded up to nearest 1000th)

SF-2018, Lincoln-2016-2017, OMAHA-2015-2017, Des Moines – 2015-2017

 

HR Director

Omaha –$153K

Des Moines – $160

Sioux Falls – $147K

Lincoln – $140K

 

Public Parking Super

Omaha – $91K

Lincoln – NA

Des Moines – NA

Sioux Falls – $82K

 

Street Director

Omaha – $93K

Lincoln – $84K

Des Moines – $101K

Sioux Falls – $125K

 

Light/Utility Super

Omaha – NA

Lincoln – $136K

Des Moines – NA

Sioux Falls – $94K

 

Health Director

Omaha – NA

Lincoln – $114K

Des Moines – NA

Sioux Falls – $159K

 

Chief Medical Officer

Omaha – NA

Lincoln – NA

Des Moines – NA

Sioux Falls – $215K

 

Chief City Attorney

Omaha – $190K

Lincoln – $136K each (2 Positions)

Des Moines – $180K (Two Positions, equal pay)

Sioux Falls – $157K

 

Public Works

Omaha – $170K

Lincoln – $136K

Des Moines – $156K

Sioux Falls – $186K

 

Police Chief

Omaha – $196K

Lincoln – $131K

Des Moines – $170K

Sioux Falls – $129K

 

Parks Director

Omaha – $86K

Lincoln – $123K

Des Moines – $143K

Sioux Falls – $159K

 

Library Director

Omaha – (multiple divided into regions)

Lincoln – $102K

Des Moines – $170K

Sioux Falls – $116K

 

Planning Director

Omaha – $155K

Lincoln – $91K

Des Moines – $139K

Sioux Falls – $147K

 

Maintenance/Custodial Director

Omaha – $104K

Lincoln – $85K

Des Moines – NA

Sioux Falls – $72K

 

Finance Director

Omaha – $157K

Lincoln – $136K

Des Moines – $152K

Sioux Falls – $179K

 

IT/Central Services

Omaha – $126K

Lincoln – $133K

Des Moines – $141K

Sioux Falls – $147K

 

Water Reclamation/Sewer Director

Omaha – $101K

Lincoln – $113K (Does Water Production and Sewer)

Des Moines – $141K

Sioux Falls – $124K

 

Water Department Super

Omaha –NA

Lincoln – SEE ABOVE (Does Water Production and Sewer)

Des Moines – NA

Sioux Falls – $115K

 

City Clerk

Omaha – $108K

Lincoln – $84K

Des Moines – $120K

Sioux Falls – $90K

 

Community Development/Urban

Omaha – $107K (combined with Housing – see below)

Lincoln – $107K

Des Moines – $135K

Sioux Falls – $126K

 

Housing

Omaha – (combined with above)

Lincoln – NA

Des Moines – $135

Sioux Falls – $79K

 

City Engineer

Omaha – NA

Lincoln – (Public works director – see above)

Des Moines – $157K

Sioux Falls – $131K

 

Fire Chief

Omaha – $205K

Lincoln – $131K

Des Moines – $155K

Sioux Falls – $126K (Previous was $146K)

 

Landfill director

Omaha – NA

Lincoln – $109K

Fargo – NA

Sioux Falls – $95K

NEW Warehouse in Flopdation Park is Hiring – Bottom of Living Wage Scale

Shocker, they are hiring a bunch of warehouse pirates and are paying at the bottom of the living wage scale.

As I said on my podcast last night, when anyone says ‘affordable housing’ it makes me cringe. I HATE THOSE TWO WORDS TOGETHER.

We don’t have an affordable housing issue in Sioux Falls, we have a wage issue. When is the city going to start asking new employers to pay living wages? The city, county and state have poured millions of tax dollars into Flopdation Park, shouldn’t those same people deserve a decent job?

Warehouse work isn’t easy, and those workers deserve a lot more than $15-$16 an hour.

Another industry in Sioux Falls bilking taxpayers for infrastructure costs and returning the favor with trailer park wages.

Are we doing this right? Drinks & Design (2/27/2018)

Detroit gave Cameraman Bruce a call to witness an event downtown on February 27, 2018 at the Design Center. Always interested in the what happens there, he said OK. So with cameras rolling we bring you the presentation hosted by Jordan Deffenbaugh, Drinks & Design, are we doing it right? His panelists were Bob Natz of Natz and Associates with Shannon Globke of Muth Electric.

From their meeting announcement:
Design is about a process. From inception to completion, certain steps need to be made to allow for a process to be successful. That goes for construction too. The processes work a certain way for certain reason, but we want to ask “Are we doing this right?” How we design? How we build? What materials we use? How we assemble those materials? And are we efficient every step of the way? We can all agree that there is room for improvement in everything. 4D EDU invites all that are interested, contractors, designers, and current and future homeowners alike, to ask the question “Are we doing this right?”

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have laboured hard for.” Socrates

“Work smarter, not harder.” Allan F. Mogensen

Design surrounds us. The streets we walk down, the phones we tap on, the homes we live in. 4D EDU, in affiliation with 4D Design + Consulting, wants to help Sioux Falls home builders and homeowners understand “what the heck design is anyway?” Enter Drinks & Design, a new event happening the last week of every month at the Design Center in Downtown Sioux Falls. These gatherings will host a panel of design experts from a multitude of backgrounds and career fields, focusing in on home design in the Sioux Empire. And of course, there will be good food, beer & wine.

City of Sioux Falls Big Salary increases even with slow tax revenue

We are still waiting for the last month to come in on the financial reports, but it looks like we are hovering around only 1% growth in tax revenue from last year.

But it didn’t stop our CEO (Mayor Huether) from giving huge raises to some directors, ironically the same directors that were involved with controversial projects like the Downtown Parking Ramp. It seems the good soldiers who followed marching orders were well rewarded.

(Raises are Approximates rounded to nearest thousand)

Turbak, Finance Director; $6K (he got a $10K raise last year)

Leonard, City Attorney; $5K

Ketchum, Director of Community Development; $5K

ONeil, Community Development; $5K

Bofenkamp, Community Development; $5K

There were some others that got some questionable raises also. Even though crime continues to increase and the minions in the police department only got 1.5% the chief received a good raise;

Burns, Chief of Police; $4K

The Director of the Public Health, Dr. Tinguely, the highest paid city employee ($204K per year) got a $11K raise and one of her assistants, Collura got $5K.

Read all about here; 2017-Wages, 2018-Wages

South Dakota, the land of opportunity and awesome wages – NOT

So Puerto Rico got devastated by a hurricane last year, and jobs are sparse for its residents (who are American citizens). No worries, Huron to the rescue;

By some counts, nearly 2,000 Puerto Ricans were leaving every day, and in that exodus, some mainland U.S. companies were starting to see an opportunity of their own — a new answer in their ever-evolving struggle to find workers who would perform lower-rung American jobs.

And if you think things were bad in Puerto Rico, welcome to poverty wages in SD;

Luque told them about the work — that it was repetitive, physical, “not always pretty.” He told them about the wages — $10.00 per hour, jumping soon after to $12 or $13. He said the company would fly them to South Dakota and slowly deduct the flight costs out of their paychecks.

They need workers so bad they can’t even pay for the flight cost. Funny how everyone in Pierre stands around with their fingers in their butts wondering why sales tax revenue is down, it’s simple math, if people don’t have money, they don’t spend money.