The Custer County Commission worked through an abbreviated agenda last Monday morning, making up the Nov. 6 meeting was cancelled due to the blizzard.

The commission heard from county emergency management director Mike Carter, who addressed a letter the county received from Fall River County requesting tax revenues from cell phone calls with a 745 prefix that have been paid to Custer County. Carter said the calls were served by Custer County services, so the money should stay in Custer County. He drafted a letter to Fall River explaining the situation, which the commission unanimously approved sending.

The county also heard from Sheriff Rick Wheeler, who said his department is working with the South Dakota Department of Transportation and other state entities to see what, if anything, can be done to make the intersection at Crazy Horse safer. They are also working on some new speed limit signs in the area.

Wheeler said the department has been running a little short staffed this week because of the ongoing trial of the Hells Angel bikers accused of attempted murder at Legion Lake in the summer of 2006. Some of the deputies have had to travel to Sioux Falls to testify. Some of them were also stranded along the way due to the blizzard. Wheeler said his deputies should be done with their testimony by the end of the week.

Finally, Carter addressed the Secure Rural Schools Act, which aids rural communities adversely impacted by a decline in USDA Forest Service timber receipts which are, in part, shared with the counties on which the timber originates.

Carter said the act was renewed for four years on a regressive basis. Each year of the act, the reimbursement will go down 10 percent. By Nov. 14, the county must submit a letter saying how much money it wants to put from the act into its Title II funds, as well as its Title III funds. The school district and the county highway department also received some of the money.

Carter said the county won’t have near the latitude it once had in spending Title III expenditures under the renewal, but county entities such as fire departments, search and rescue, etc., will be able to bill for services provided on federal land supporting a mission that has to do with the national forest. For instance, if the sheriff’s department were to provide traffic control on a major fire, it could charge the Forest Service for that work under Title III. Carter said he will stress to those entities, however, that the act may not be renewed in four years, so it is important not to become dependent on that money they are reimbursed.