Week of June 24th: The assessors will be beginning with properties on the west side of Cascade Road along the first five miles south of Hot Springs. This includes the subdivisions: Country Club Estates, Cascade Mountain Ranches, and Pine Shadows.

Why my property?  Fall River County implemented a 7-year rotation after the county-wide reassessment was completed.  This ensures that every property is physically visited by an assessor at least once every 7 years.  Your neighborhood is one of those scheduled to be visited this year.

What is reassessment?    Reassessment is when the assessor comes to your property to check for any changes, whether improvements or deterioration of buildings.  They will take new exterior photos and walk around the outside of your buildings.  If you are present they may ask you questions about the interior of the building, if you are not present they will leave a doorhanger with contact information so they can converse with you about the property later via phone or email.

When exactly will you be at my property?  We will be posting on our website which streets are being assessed each week, you can check there for updates.

Why don’t you make appointments? The short answer: it takes less time for our assessors to start at one end of the street and do each property than it does to jump from property to property based on appointments.  As we are paid by tax dollars, we consider it most important that we perform this job in a time efficient manner.   The door-to-door method has proven to be three times more efficient than making appointments.

Who is coming? Our assessors will have county identification badges and will be driving a county vehicle. If you are suspicious that someone is falsely claiming to be an assessor, please call our office at 605-745-5136 or Fall River County Dispatch at 605-745-5155.

See Summer Reassessment page for maps of Summer 2024 reassessment area.

Fall River County is preparing to place this summer’s replacement order for faded road signs and address markers.  If you are aware of a county 911 sign that has faded and is no longer readable please inform our office before July 1st so we can add it to this year’s order.

You can report faded signs to [email protected], 605-745-7584, or via facebook message.  Please let us know the full address, both number and street, if reporting a faded address marker. Please report the intersection for road signs.  If possible please send a photo of the faded sign (this can be especially helpful for our office for the road name signs).

Although our GIS office does review roads on a rotation we do not have the staff to get to every road every year. We appreciate those in the public that assist us with this project.

The Fall River County Director of Equalization is accepting applications for Data Entry and Assessor positions.  Both positions are full-time with full benefits.  Starting wage between $15.00 and $18.00 depending on position and experience. See employment page for details.

Update 6/25/2024 2:23 pm:  Work has been completed and railroad crossing is again open.

Original Post: Those traveling to Smithwick from June 25th to 27th may need to take an alternative route. The Smithwick railroad crossing on Smithwick Road (County Road 1) will be closed beginning Tuesday, June 25th, 2024 for plank replacement. This replacement may take 1 to 3 days.

Those traveling from the south are advised to take North Butte Road off of US Highway 18. Those traveling from the north or west are advised to take Hay Canyon and Sand Creek Roads.

SECRETARY OF STATE UPDATES VOTERS ON POST-ELECTION AUDITS

 (Pierre, S.D.) – With the June 4th Primary Election quickly approaching, Secretary of State Monae L. Johnson would like to update voters on the newest process being implemented to ensure the accuracy of South Dakota’s elections: post-election audits.

Post-election audits must be conducted within fifteen days of the completion of the state canvassing of a primary or general election, which means that they will occur between June 12-26 this year. During an audit, voted ballots from five percent of the precincts in each county (randomly selected by the county auditor in front of the county canvassing board without the use of a computer) will be hand counted, and the results of the hand count will be compared with the results produced by the automatic tabulating equipment that was used in the election. All audits will be conducted by a county auditing board composed of members appointed by the county auditor. In order to provide added transparency, each county auditing board must have members from different political parties. Voters can be confident in the integrity of South Dakota’s elections. Tabulating machines, in use for over twenty years, will be verified with post-election audits by our county auditors.

“A post-election audit is another check and balance to ensure integrity of South Dakota elections,” said Secretary Johnson. “It gives voters assurance their vote was counted and that all election results can be trusted.”

Just like the mandatory tests of automatic tabulating equipment that occur before each election as well as all election-day processes, post-election audits are open to the public. We encourage everyone to go watch and participate if they get the chance. Please visit the Secretary of State’s website at https://sdsos.gov/elections-voting/election-resources/post-election-audits.aspx to learn more about South Dakota’s new post-election audits.