If a South Dakota sheriff and deputies use their own vehicles for patrol but the county's mileage rate isn't enough to cover insurance, fuel, and maintenance, can the county commissioners pay for those expenses on top of the mileage rate?
Plain-English summary
Fall River County's sheriff and deputies used their own personal vehicles as patrol cars, and the mileage allowance the county paid was not covering actual operating costs. Sheriff Manke asked AG Bill Janklow whether the county commissioners could pay insurance, fuel, and maintenance on top of the mileage rate to make the sheriff and deputies whole.
Janklow said no. The Legislature designed the sheriff-vehicle scheme as a binary choice. Under SDCL 7-12-18(9), if the sheriff uses a privately owned vehicle, the county pays a per-mile reimbursement (then set at not less than the statutory minimum and not more than twenty cents per mile, with the county able to set the actual figure within that range). Under SDCL 7-12-12 the alternative path is for the county to furnish vehicles, uniforms, and other equipment, in which case the last sentence of that statute prohibits any mileage payment.
The two options are mutually exclusive. The county picks one or the other.
Janklow rejected the proposed mixed approach because it would have collapsed the legislative design. If the county could pay both mileage and operating expenses, there would be no functional difference between "furnishing" the vehicle (paying its expenses but not its mileage) and "reimbursing private use" (paying mileage and now also expenses). The two paths would converge into one expensive hybrid that the Legislature plainly did not authorize. SDCL 7-12-12's express prohibition on mileage when the county furnishes the vehicle is the structural clue: the two paths are designed not to overlap.
Janklow closed with a pragmatic note. If the statutory mileage cap (twenty cents per mile at the time) was too low to cover actual costs of operating a vehicle as a patrol car, the answer was a legislative fix. The Legislature could raise the cap. The county could not work around the cap administratively by paying expenses outside of it.
Currency note
This opinion was issued in 1976. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here. The sheriff vehicle reimbursement statutes (SDCL 7-12-18 and 7-12-12) have been amended over the decades, and the twenty-cent-per-mile cap from 1976 has long since been replaced. Anyone evaluating current sheriff vehicle reimbursement practice should check the current SDCL provisions and the South Dakota Board of Finance travel rates.
What the opinion meant at the time
For Fall River County and other small South Dakota counties, the opinion meant the county had a choice to make. Either keep the private-vehicle, mileage-only arrangement and accept that the sheriff and deputies might be coming up short, or switch to county-furnished patrol vehicles and absorb the capital and operating costs at the county level. The hybrid third option, which would have shared the cost differently, was off the table.
For sheriffs and deputies using private vehicles, the opinion confirmed they could not look to the county commissioners for supplemental payments to cover fuel price spikes, insurance increases, or maintenance bills. Their compensation was the salary plus the mileage rate.
For county commissioners weighing the two options, the opinion clarified the trade-offs. The mileage option had certainty (predictable per-mile cost, no capital investment) but potentially shortchanged the sheriff. The furnished-vehicle option had capital and operating exposure but kept the sheriff whole.
For state legislators, the opinion was an implicit prompt. The mileage cap, set by statute, was the controlling figure. As vehicle costs rose, the cap would need to be revisited.
Background and statutory framework
The sheriff vehicle reimbursement scheme in SDCL 7-12-18(9) and 7-12-12 reflects a structural choice: keep sheriff vehicle costs visible and bounded. Either the county knows what each mile costs (mileage option) or the county owns the vehicle (furnished option). The county cannot have a mixed arrangement where it is paying some unknown share of operating costs in addition to mileage.
This binary design was common in mid-twentieth-century county officer compensation statutes. The Legislature paired a per-unit allowance (per mile, per service, per filing) with the alternative of being officially provided the necessary equipment. The two paths captured the universe; any third path would have required express statutory authority.
SDCL 7-12-18(9)'s minimum-maximum framework gave county commissioners discretion to set the rate within the statutory band. That was the lever for adjusting to local conditions. The maximum (twenty cents per mile in 1976) was the ceiling; counties could set lower if local conditions allowed.
The framework's main limitation, as Janklow noted, was inflation. When operating costs rose faster than the statutory cap, the mileage option became less viable and counties were pushed toward the furnished-vehicle option. The opinion does not solve that problem; it just identifies which lever (the cap, set in Pierre) needed to move.
Citations
- SDCL 7-12-18(9) (sheriff mileage allowance)
- SDCL 7-12-12 (county may furnish equipment; prohibits mileage payments)
Source
Original opinion text
County not authorized to pay expenses, other than mileage, of privately owned sheriff's vehicle
Dear Sheriff Manke:
You state that the Fall River County Sheriff and deputies use their privately owned vehicles as patrol cars. However, the mileage allowance received is insufficient to cover the total operating expenses.
The specific question you ask is whether the county commissioners may, in their discretion, furnish and pay for such items as insurance, fuel and maintenance in addition to a mileage allowance.
SDCL 7-12-18(9) authorizes mileage for sheriffs as follows:
(9) For traveling expenses in cars or planes owned by the sheriff, or necessary emergency vehicles, not to exceed twenty cents for each mile actually and necessarily traveled by car, with any additional mileage allowances being set and paid by the county;
As an alternative, SDCL 7-12-12 authorizes the county commissioners to "furnish any motorcycle, automobile, truck or other vehicle, uniform and other equipment to the sheriff or his deputies." The last sentence of that provision then prohibits any mileage payments to sheriffs or deputies for whom motor vehicles are furnished.
Thus, the Legislature has provided county commissioners with two options. The county may: 1) provide, equip and maintain the patrol vehicles, or 2) authorize the use of private vehicles and provide a reimbursement for expenses within the limitations of subdivision (9) of SDCL 7-2-18.
In the latter case, it is my opinion that the commissioners may not reimburse the sheriff or his deputies other than with the mileage payment specified in statute. If it were otherwise, the county commissioners would not be required to make a determination as to which option to exercise. They could, in fact, "furnish" the vehicle by paying a mileage allowance as well as all the actual operating expenses. Such would not be a very feasible approach for the county to take.
For the above-stated reason as well as the fact that I find no specific statutory authority for payment of actual expenses, it is my opinion that the answer to your question is NO. The Legislature, by setting a minimum and maximum mileage rate in SDCL 7-12-18(9) apparently felt there was sufficient flexibility to take care of any increase in operating costs. If, as you indicate, the present statutory maximum is unrealistic, it is a matter for the next legislative session to consider.
Respectfully submitted,
William J. Janklow
Attorney General
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