City, county should negotiate accord

For the past several months, and maybe longer, the City of Custer and Custer County have been going back and forth as they try to settle on an amount of money the city will pay to the county in exchange for providing law enforcement services for the city in 2026. There have been a multitude of negotiation sessions, letters from lawyers, back and forth and frustration. And that is from both sides of the issue.
We will be the first to admit we don’t know all the ins and outs of the negotiations or reasons for what is playing out, as most of it has been done through lawyers and in executive session. But we do know one thing: we hope the two parties can figure it out.
Over the course of the next couple or few weeks, we will do a story or two on this issue, as we plan to lay out the reasoning behind both the county and city’s position on the issue. The way we understand it as of now—again fully admitting that much of the wheeling and dealing has been done behind closed doors—is that the county’s position is a majority of the calls the Custer County Sheriff’s Office respond to are generated within the City of Custer. As such, as we have reported, the Custer County Commission has asked the city to dramatically raise the amount of money it pays the county for law enforcement, from $435,000 this year to $550,000 next year, $650,000 the following year and then up to $750,000 in 2028.
The city has countered the county’s offer, and has offered to pay $500,000 in 2026. So, near as we can tell, there is a $50,000 difference that is seperating the two. Maybe they will meet in the middle at $525,000. Maybe they are both dug in. We sure hope they can come to an agreement, because we know how important the sheriff’s office presence is for the city and for the city’s events. 
Stuck in the middle of all of this, of course, is sheriff Marty Mechaley, who is simply just trying to do his job to the best of his ability and make sure he has enough deputies to patrol and respond to calls in an ever-growing county. We also stress we have not talked in depth with Mechaley about the issue, either, so we do not know his stance on how things are unfolding. Perhaps that is in the offing as well as the issue comes to a head, which may very well have been at this morning’s meeting of the Custer County Commission, where the issue was on the docket to be discussed. The outcome of that discussion will of course be reported on in next week’s issue of the Chronicle.
Whatever happens next year, it is clear the city believes it cannot pay the price escalation the county feels is warranted. We this means the city may be considering forming its own police department once more, or just feels that since city residents are residents of the county, the county is obligated to respond to calls in the city regardless of how much money the city gives to the county to help pay for the sheriff’s office. These are all questions we plan to ask.
We aren’t taking a position on this issue, if for no other reason than we don’t have enough information. We are hopeful a compromise can be found, however.