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SDPB. I now call the Executive Board to order. Madam Secretary, will you call the roll, please?

Deibert?

Here.

Kolbeck? Here.

Mehlhaff?

Here.

Otten?

Pischke.

Here.

Aylward.

Here.

Gosh. Here.

Otten is here.

Otten's here. Okay, got Otten here. Gosh.

Healy.

Here.

Heermann.

Here.

Jamison. Mulder.

Here.

Odenbach.

Here.

Larson.

Here.

Hansen?

Here.

Karr?

Here.

Mr. Chair, you have a quorum.

We have a quorum. Thank you. All right, good morning everybody. Thank you for joining us this morning. I really appreciate it. I think we've got one thing on the agenda today, and that's to go into executive session to discuss the director position and personnel items. Before we do that, I know we have minutes I would entertain a motion to approve minutes from the last meeting.

So moved.

Second. Ma'am, testimony— or I'm sorry, the public does not have the ability to do a point of order. We're going to do public testimony at the end of the day when we're done, before we go. But I also ask you to please remove your hat during our committee meeting. Thank you. We don't typically allow hats.

Excuse me, point of order, Chair. Who is this? There is minutes on the agenda, and the public has a right to comment on those minutes before you take a vote.

I'm sorry, who was that?

This is James Bialota, for the record.

Mr. Bialota.

And the point of order is to be heard for public comment. On the minutes before a vote for the public comments on the minutes.

Okay, I'm gonna just take a minute and double-check a couple items before we move forward here. Please be on standby. So, Mr. Bialota, I'm going to overrule your, your, your outburst and your point of order. First of all, I don't take public testimony on motions. Secondly, we don't do that with minutes. We approve the minutes. There will be an opportunity for public testimony at the end of this meeting today if you care to comment on the minutes.

So, well, then it's my duty to inform the board that you're going to commit a criminal offense by removing items from the minutes that are required by law.

You're out of order, and I'm going to have you muted or removed.

And you are subject to arrest for a misdemeanor in our presence.

Thank you. I have a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting. It was made by Senator Hansen, seconded by— or sorry, Representative Hansen, seconded by Senator Mehlhaff. This is a voice vote. Or sorry, is there any comments from the members? Seeing none, this is a voice vote. All in favor will say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. Those minutes are approved. Thank you. Okay, at this time we're going to go into Executive session. I'd entertain a motion to do so, Mr.

Chair.

Yes, Representative Hansen.

Executive session to discuss personnel matters.

Second. I have a motion to go into executive session by Representative Hansen. Seconded by Senator Mehlhaff. Yeah, voice vote. All in favor will say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. We will go into executive session. So I'm gonna ask IT to make sure we only have members on the Teams at this time. And I'd ask everybody else to please evacuate the room. And we're gonna go offline. The executive board committee will come back to order. Thank you, everybody, for your patience and for waiting for us to have the executive session and discuss personnel matters. One of the things that we've been talking about this interim and since the end of session was the vacant director position. So we all know that Director McCullough left and we miss him, but we started the search for a full-time director this summer. We've had an interim director filled by our Chief of Fiscal. Thank you. Jeff Mehlhaff. I appreciate his willingness to step up and step in. We're at a point, though, where we don't know how much longer it's going to take for us to find the right director for the full-time position. And we do not want to rush that. We want to take our time. We want to find the right person. With that being said, fiscal needs the chief of fiscal to be there, start Getting ready for session, it's a busy time as the executive branch starts setting their budget and that data starts flowing into fiscal. We need folks that are analyzing it. We need guidance. We have, you know, staff that need to be trained, et cetera. And unfortunately, that position is too important that you cannot, you know, wear both hats of trying to be interim director and chief fiscal during session. So in preparing for that—

Thank you.

In preparing for session, we have looked for a different interim director, and I'd like to talk about that just a little bit. We wanted to find somebody that could come in and have some experience and background with LRC that would provide some guiding oversight that would be respected, work with the The e-board, but also recognize the structure that was put in place with Director McCullough. And I think we have found the right person for that position. And so that person is Doug Decker. He's been a longtime member of the legislative branch, over, I think, 40 years, I think, at this point. And so I would I'm going to invite Mr. Decker to come up just for a minute. Thank you. I just want to say, I really— we first have to acknowledge what a niche role this is, the job duties, the experience that's required. Not only that, the The experience that somebody has, like like yourself, to be with our LRC office, to understand our laws, to have been code counsel for 20 plus years, to be willing to come out of retirement and help us out. And in the meantime, how much I appreciate that and your your family for that decision. We're going to have a motion here to appoint Mr. Decker as. The interim— I'm sorry, the director pro tem. We've got a new name for the position. But before I did that, I just wanted to give Mr. Decker a chance if he had anything he wanted to share. Just, I'm humbled, like I said when I originally got the call, that you would think of me. And I hope to move the process forward. And meet expectations, and I look forward to the challenge. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Decker. Okay, I would entertain a motion at this time.

Mr.

Chair.

Representative Hansen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to appoint Mr. Doug Decker as director pro tem starting September 28th, 2026, with a— with an annual salary of $240,000.

I have a motion. Second. I have a second. Motion by Representative Hansen, seconded by Senator Mehlhaff. Discussion on that motion, please.

Well, I would just reiterate everything that you said, that we are truly fortunate to have Mr. Decker willing to step up and take on this role. I think if you look at his background, his resume, he's just got an extensive amount of experience with the legislative branch. And this is something that, you know, it's— that's difficult to come by. It's not every day somebody is here in Pierre who's got that kind of experience and is willing to take on this job. And so for your willingness to step up and shepherd this Legislative Research Council through this next session, we're just very grateful. And one thing that I shared earlier is, you know, one thing that money can't buy is just a love for the legislative branch of government, a dedication to this branch of government, a fidelity to this branch of government. And that's what Mr. Decker brings. And I've known it, I've seen it ever since we met long ago. Throughout his time, he just is really dedicated to this institution, and I'm really grateful for that as well. And it'll show through in his work as he takes on this director pro tem role. So, Mr. Decker, thank you very much for stepping up. We really appreciate your service.

Thank you.

To our legislature and to our state.

Well said. Any other comments from the committee? I can't see if there's any hands up. I don't know if anybody else can— who's monitoring our— any other comments? Okay, seeing none, we have a motion by Representative Hansen, seconded by Senator Mehlhaff, to appoint Mr. Doug Decker as director pro tem starting September 28th, 2026, with an annual salary of $240,000.

Second.

This will be a voice vote. I'm sorry, not a voice vote. This will be a roll call vote, and the secretary will call the roll, please. Deibert?

Aye.

Kolbeck?

Aye.

Mehlhaff?

Aye. Otten? Aye. Pischke?

Aye. Aylward?

Aye.

Gosch? Excused.

Healy?

Aye.

Heermann? Aye. Jamison?

Excused.

Mulder? Aye.

Odenbach?

Aye.

Larson?

Aye.

Hansen? Aye. And Carr?

Aye.

Mr. Chair, you have 13 ayes and 2 excused.

Motion passes. Thank you. I want to just thank our staff. And the management that we have in place to keep things going during this time while we go through this process. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the professionalism we have in our office. Thank you. I have another topic that we're going to cover real quick regarding personnel, and that's regarding the HR company that we've hired a few years ago. We've been continuing to work with them and develop our HR processes. And I just want to make sure that everybody understands some of the things that we're working on, trying to put into place. And I have a motion in order to formalize that as well. And so I'd entertain a motion at this time. Mr.

Chair.

Go ahead.

Thank you. I would move to direct the Executive Committee to work with Alternative HR to perform an HR analysis of the office, with results to be returned to the Executive Committee.

Second. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. Discussion?

Well, first of all, I would just echo what you said earlier, which is I'm just really grateful for the staff that we have at Legislative Research Council. I've seen a lot of staff over the years, been around for a little while, and I really think we have a really exceptionally talented group of people working on behalf of the legislative branch of government. So I'm just really grateful for all the work that everybody does for this branch. to deliver for the people of this state throughout the legislative session and in the interim. This is just, I think, a tool that will be useful, particularly as we transfer into this interim period and then beyond to a full-time executive director, that can be useful to make sure that, you know, everything that's going on in the office is good, that our employees are happy, fulfilled in their work, and It's something that we can provide to this new director as an important tool in that regard. Thank you.

Any other comments? I'll just add on to that, you know, whatever we can do to enhance our office and the working conditions, morale, and things like that, we definitely want to do that. We want to stay ahead and aware of any issues that could arise as well. So, okay, we have a motion by Representative Hansen, seconded by Senator Mehlhaff. To direct the Executive Committee to work with an alternative— with Alternative HR to perform an HR analysis of the office, with the results to be returned to the Executive Committee. Madam Secretary, will you call the roll, please?

Deibert?

No.

Kolbeck?

Aye.

Mehlhaff?

Aye.

Otten?

Aye.

Pischke?

Aye.

Aylward. Aye.

Gosh is excused.

Healy.

Aye. Heermann. Aye. Jamison is excused. Mulder.

Aye. Odenbach.

Aye.

Larson.

Nay.

Hansen.

Aye.

Carr.

Aye.

Mr.

Chair, you have 11 ayes, 2 nays, and 2 excused.

That motion passes. Thank you. Okay. I think that concludes our business. I'm going to open it up for public testimony at this time. As was discussed at the onset of our meeting, the public testimony will relate back to the agenda. The item on the agenda was the minutes. So at this time, if anybody has public testimony regarding the minutes. I would invite them— come on up. Please, just a reminder to state your name for the record, please.

Yeah. Chairman Carr?

So, you know, just out of fairness to everybody, I'm going to limit it to 2 minutes. So go ahead.

Okay, Chairman Karr, Vice Chair Hansen, and members of the board, I am Renae Randall and I'm speaking on my own behalf. I requested to give you more information about my inability to report the whistleblower issue to the Attorney General. Can I speak about that, or do you not want to hear about that?

Ma'am, um, I'd like to just stick to the minutes. At this time, that information is provided and will be provided to the executive board so everybody can review it. I know that you submitted a great deal of documents just recently, right? Is that accurate?

Yep.

Okay. And so we need to be able to have time to review those and then determine if that's something that would be put on a future agenda.

Okay.

To discuss that.

Well, then I should send you this that I wanted to speak about too.

Right, please send us everything so we have everything and we have the ability to review that.

Okay.

It's very hard for us to assess a situation and allot time, et cetera, without knowing all the details and having everybody apprised of it as well.

Okay, and then you'll reply back to me? I've been having problems with people replying back.

I will make sure that we reply back to you.

Okay, all right, thank you. I would like to note that my public documents for the 8/26 meeting is not in being made public and is not in the minutes as the executive order for any reason why it should be hidden. And so. For the minutes, I guess I'm— there's several things that should be on there that aren't.

Okay, I'd have to look into, you know, what was submitted and then what was posted live. The minutes are a summary of what took place during the meeting time.

Yep, they just don't have the kind of detail that probably is needed, right? Because they're— the documents aren't, aren't being made public.

Okay.

Okay. Noted. All right, thank you.

Okay, thank you. Any other public testimony this morning? Yes, come on up.

Good morning, Chair. Good morning, committee or board. I'm Cindy Cooke from Rapid City, and I guess I'm very confused as why the minutes got passed. Before anybody could say anything about that. And what I was going to say is we must correct these minutes.

This—

it cannot be swept under the rug. The motion and vote to enter executive session must be reported in the minutes. So there was quite a few laws supposedly that were broken this morning. I think we should have had a chance to be able to voice our opinion. I, I got up this morning and drove here from Rapid City because many times I'm unable to testify remotely, and I thought that this was important enough to be here today to be able to voice my opinion on the minutes before you passed them.

Yeah.

So can you shed some light on that? Why?

I'd be happy to, um, just talk about that a little brief, you know, briefly. Uh, first of all, whether I agree or disagree with you, I do respect the ability, uh, of our, our citizens to come and participate in our meetings. That's different for every board, and I, I will provide you with some rules and laws since there was some some wild accusations I thought thrown around about us breaking the law. And so I don't take that lightly, and nor your time. And that's why I did make sure staff responded to everybody that expressed interest in testifying that's gonna pertain to the minutes.

But does that make sense for us to be able to testify now after it's already taken place?

Well, here's what would typically happen, ma'am, is If you had something that you wanted us to think about regarding those minutes, just based on our procedures, you know, I would encourage anybody in the future to text that information or send that to staff, what that information is, so we can look at it. And I know that some have, and we can take that into consideration.

Can you withdraw the minutes? I mean, can you withdraw the minutes to fix them? After you've already passed this, if you find that there were laws that were broken?

Minutes can be modified, but at this time I'm not— I guess there's nothing that's been presented that would convince me that there's been a law broken.

So— Well, there's some— well, what I understood as I was reading through some things, South Dakota Codified Law 2-9-4, In part states it is the duty of the executive board to instigate research and collect information concerning the government and general welfare of the state. Also investigate and make recommendations concerning important issues of public policy and questions of statewide issue. Renae Randall has been attacked, and she's a whistleblower for 105 investors in South Dakota that should be very worried about their financials. And she has exposed everything. It's on exposelies.com. I had no idea all of this was happening. And so I'm, I'm thinking that this is your job.

Yes.

To hold these people accountable in the SDIC and, and get it on the agenda immediately. Every day that goes by, it's worse and worse. And I mean, you have all the documents, you've seen what's going on, and it is your job to, to bring this out in the open.

Thank you.

Ms. Cook, I'm just going to remind you, I did send a time limit. We've went well over it.

Of course.

Could you wrap it up, please?

Well, I, I would like to just ask a question of this board. Are you going to look into this and make sure that, first of all, she doesn't get murdered from knowing too much? It seems like there is a major cover-up. on this whole nightmare. And when 105,000 people find out what is happening to their investments, there's gonna be hell to pay. And like I said, I thought it was important enough that I came here today to expose it. And I'm hoping you guys, you know, do this.

Mm-hmm. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your time. Is there any other public testimony at this time? Okay, I'm going to open it up for some committee discussion, but I first just want to address a couple of things as this has come up a few times.

Excuse me, point of order. I've had my hand raised from the online the entire time.

All right, Mr. Bialota. Please state your name and go ahead and proceed. We've got a 2-minute time limit. Go ahead.

My name is James Bialota, and I want to reiterate what you said. The only thing we could talk about was the minutes because it was the only thing on the agenda, but you lied. You specifically had the vote on hiring a new LRC director. Not only that, then you added an item to the agenda after executive session That was never published on the record, sir. You have violated several open meeting laws. You're required to post the agenda 24 hours in advance, and nobody modified the agenda for today's meeting, which means that vote you just had on the management company was 100% illegal, and you're gonna have to fix it. Now, I was here to speak on the minutes because people have submitted documents on the record. In time for the agenda and in time for the minutes, and they were specifically withheld from the minutes. And the law is quite clear on what you broke. You were required by law to put those details in the minutes. This isn't, you know, a question. So you're in violation of 125-1 public meeting laws.

Thank you.

The minutes uncorrected violates 125-3. But why stop there? You also violated by not putting them on the agenda, 127-1.16. All 3 are criminal acts. Legislative immunity does not give you immunity to break the law, and you're still subject to jail. This is ridiculous. You knowingly did this. LRC has the email they sent to me saying, yes, Mr. Bialota, you'll be able to speak on the minutes, but you bypass the public. Having public minutes after you vote is about as useless as tits on a bull. This has got to stop.

Mr. Bialota, your time is up. Thank you. I'm going to first say I listened I don't think it was the most respectful testimony that I've heard, but I still listened. 1-25 deals with the open meeting laws, and if you look in there and you read that, you'll see that the legislature is excluded. They do not apply to the legislature. This might come as a surprise to some. We are required by Constitution that The meetings are open to the public, but every board and committee has different rules that also govern it. There is no requirement actually for public testimony on several issues including bills, but we do that. We offer that. We've never done public testimony on motions like the minutes. If you want to provide some input, like I said, the right way to do that would be to send some information to members so they can look at your concerns, staff can look at it and see if it needs to be addressed prior to the meeting. Otherwise, public testimony at the end, we give you an opportunity, and I think it was a very fair opportunity and probably a very lenient opportunity. 2-9-5 talks about the rules that govern the executive board. So I know you mentioned 2-9-4, but 2-9-5 talks about the rules and the executive board duties, powers, and authority. And it clearly states the board shall make its own rules and regulations in there. No statutory requirement states that we have to take public testimony. Only the committees are open to the public, but they're not entitled to be—I'm sorry—but they are not entitled to be allowed public testimony. So I hope that clears it up for those that are confused and have made accusations today about this board and its actions. So with that, I'll open it up for any other comments from the committee. Regarding any topic today or final thoughts before we depart? Any final business? Have anybody online? Last call. That concludes our business today, and I'd entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Again, I had my hand up, Mr. Karr.

Mr. Bialota, you're out of order. I've allowed you public testimony. I've given you that time and then some. And been extremely lenient despite your disrespectful testimony. I suggest you read the laws that I—

please, Elijah.

Thank you. I would ask for those to go and actually understand the laws before they start talking about what is in them. I have a motion to adjourn. This is a non-debatable motion. It's made by Representative Hansen, seconded by Senator Mehlhaff. All in favor will say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Nay. We are adjourned.