Board reviews LEC maintenance fund, appoints at‑large citizen with decades of jail experience

The Woodbury County Board reviewed year‑end information about the Law Enforcement Center (LEC) maintenance fund and appointed an at‑large citizen representative to the LEC authority.

Treasury/finance staff reported the maintenance fund began 2025 with a balance of $1,413,000 and that as of Dec. 22 the balance was $1,835,000; interest income was running at about $4,000 per month in 2025. The county contributes $200,000 semiannually to the maintenance fund (a total of $400,000 per year). The county discussed a cap in the lease/contract at $8,000,000, at which point the semiannual contributions would stop; staff and legal counsel explained that the fund is controlled by the authority and that altering the funding stream could affect bondholder agreements and the county's credit rating.

The board nominated and then voted to appoint Tony (transcript contains multiple spellings of the surname) as the LEC at‑large citizen representative, with an effective start date of Jan. 20, 2026. Tony described 33 years of service with the sheriff's office across corrections, patrol, investigations, and administrative roles and said his priority would be to focus on staff safety and operational needs in the transition from construction to long‑term maintenance.

Sheriff's Office representatives and other supervisors strongly endorsed the appointment, citing Tony's institutional knowledge of the new facility and his role in the construction and move. The motion to approve the appointment (moved by Bittinger and seconded by Nelson) passed with board approval recorded in the transcript.