Can an individual city council member (alderman) demand to look at a specific city employee's timesheet, and are city employee timesheets public records anyone can request?
Plain-English summary
The Belle Fourche city attorney asked the AG two related questions: can individual aldermen demand to inspect specific city employee timesheets, and must the city produce those timesheets as public records?
AG Marty Jackley answered no to both. South Dakota statutes treat the aldermanic form of city government as a body-based system. The mayor is the chief executive officer with the appointment and removal powers under SDCL 9-14-3 and 9-14-13. The city council, acting as a body, conducts city business. Nowhere in those statutes is an individual alderman given supervisory authority over employees or a personal right to inspect personnel files. An alderman acting alone is in roughly the same position as a member of the public.
On the public-records question, employee timesheets are exempt from disclosure twice over. SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) shields personnel information except salaries and directory information, and SDCL 1-27-1.5(22) shields records whose release would be an unreasonable invasion of personal information. The AG agreed with the South Dakota Office of Hearing Examiners, which had already ruled in a similar Belle Fourche case (the Schmaltz request, decided May 17, 2022) that timesheets fall outside what the public is entitled to see.
SDCL 1-27-1.3 directs that the public-records statutes be liberally construed to support fiscal-records access, but the AG read that as a rule of construction, not a stand-alone mandate that overrides exemptions. Liberal construction applies to harmonize the statutes, not to defeat specific exemptions.
What this means for you
If you sit on a South Dakota city council
You do not have personal authority to walk into the finance office and pull a specific employee's timesheet. The supervisory chain in an aldermanic-form city runs through the mayor (under SDCL 9-8-1, 9-14-3, 9-14-13), not through individual council members. Practical options if you have concerns about an employee's hours:
- Raise it with the mayor, who is the chief executive.
- Bring it to the full council and let the body act, possibly by directing the city attorney or auditor to review specific records under the council's collective authority.
- Use the budget and audit process to require periodic time-tracking reports in aggregated, non-identifying form (totals by department, overtime totals, etc.) which do not contain personnel information protected by SDCL 1-27-1.5(7).
- Vote on appointment and removal questions through the procedures the mayor controls under SDCL 9-14-3 (council approval) and 9-14-13 (mayor's removal).
If you are a city attorney advising a council
When an alderman demands timesheets, point to this opinion plus the Schmaltz decision. The path forward is a council-level request through the mayor, not a unilateral demand. If aldermen want better visibility into staff time, design an aggregate reporting protocol that does not implicate SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) or (22).
If you are a city finance officer or HR manager
Treat timesheet requests from individual elected officials with the same care you treat outside public-records requests. Document what was asked for, what you released, and on what basis. If you decline, route the requestor to the public records appeal path. Provide aggregated data when council members want patterns or oversight, not row-level personnel data.
If you are a city employee
Your individual timesheet is not a record the public can pull. Aldermen do not have a back-door route to it either. Concerns about retaliation or scrutiny that depend on specific employees being singled out are reduced by these protections, although personnel actions remain governed by separate employment-law rules.
If you are a South Dakota journalist
You can get salary information and directory information under SDCL 1-27-1.5(7). You cannot get individual timesheets. Aggregate payroll data, overtime totals by department, and named personnel-action records that have entered the public file (terminations confirmed in council minutes, for example) remain available. The exemption is for raw personnel files, not for the fact that someone holds a public position.
If you are a resident of an aldermanic-form South Dakota city
Council members do not have personal supervisory authority over staff. If you want a specific employee's work reviewed, the path is the mayor, the council acting as a body, or the audit process. Direct requests to a single alderman will not produce personnel records.
Common questions
Q: Does this apply only to Belle Fourche?
A: The opinion arose from a Belle Fourche request, but the analysis is grounded in statewide statutes (the SDCL 1-27 series and the SDCL Chapter 9-8 aldermanic-form provisions). It applies to every first-class aldermanic-form municipality in South Dakota.
Q: What about second-class or third-class cities, or city-manager-form cities?
A: The aldermanic-form statutes (SDCL 9-8) are specific. City-manager-form cities operate under SDCL Chapter 9-10 with a different appointment and removal structure, but the public-records exemptions in SDCL 1-27-1.5 apply equally. A city-manager-form city would also withhold individual timesheets from the public.
Q: Can the council as a body get timesheets?
A: The opinion does not directly address whether the council as a body (by majority vote) could compel access. The statutory analysis suggests the council's tools are budget-level, audit-level, and the appointment-and-removal levers, not personnel-file inspection. A council resolution attempting to compel disclosure runs into the same SDCL 1-27-1.5 exemptions.
Q: What information about city employees is public?
A: SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) preserves disclosure of salaries and "routine directory information." Salaries, position titles, dates of hire, and contact information for the public role are typically available. Hours worked on specific days, leave usage, disciplinary records, and similar personnel-file content are not.
Q: What was the Schmaltz decision the opinion relies on?
A: A May 17, 2022 Office of Hearing Examiners decision on a public records request for two Belle Fourche employees' timesheets. The OHE upheld the city's denial under SDCL 1-27-1.5. The AG opinion adopts the OHE's reasoning, giving it persuasive weight statewide.
Q: Does SDCL 1-27-1.3 override the exemptions?
A: No. The AG read it as a rule of liberal construction in favor of access to fiscal records, applied alongside the SDCL 1-27-1.5 exemptions to produce a workable result. The exemptions still control specific categories.
Background and statutory framework
South Dakota's open-records framework is a presumption-of-disclosure model layered with specific exemptions. SDCL 1-27-1 declares public records open; SDCL 1-27-1.3 instructs that the openness statutes be liberally construed for fiscal records; SDCL 1-27-1.5 carves out exemptions for personnel files, attorney-client communications, security records, and other categories where the public interest in disclosure is outweighed by other concerns.
Personnel information sits inside SDCL 1-27-1.5(7), which makes everything except salaries and directory information non-public. The category was drawn intentionally narrow on disclosure: salary is public because it goes to taxpayer accountability, but the rest of an employee's file (performance, discipline, hours, leave usage) is private under state law. SDCL 1-27-1.5(22) catches edge cases where a release would be an "unreasonable" invasion even of records not specifically listed elsewhere.
On the city-government side, SDCL Chapter 9-8 organizes aldermanic-form municipalities around a mayor and elected aldermen, with the mayor as chief executive and the council acting as a deliberative body. SDCL 9-14-3 places appointment of officers in the mayor's hands subject to council approval; SDCL 9-14-13 places removal in the mayor's hands alone. The opinion's central move is to read those provisions, plus the silence on individual-alderman supervisory authority, as evidence that the legislature did not contemplate aldermen acting unilaterally to access personnel records.
The South Dakota Supreme Court's statutory-interpretation canon (Olson v. Butte County Commission, 2019 S.D. 13) anchors the analysis: when the language of a statute is clear, the court applies it as written. The Court does not read in unwritten rights of access, and it does not treat liberal-construction directives as defeating specific exemptions (Ibrahim v. Department of Public Safety, 2021 S.D. 17).
Citations and references
Statutes:
- SDCL 1-27-1.3 (public access to fiscal records, liberal construction)
- SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) (personnel information exemption)
- SDCL 1-27-1.5(22) (unreasonable release of personal information)
- SDCL 9-8-1 (mayor as chief executive officer)
- SDCL 9-8-3, 9-8-4, 9-8-8 (mayor's role, council composition, quorum)
- SDCL 9-14-3 (mayor appoints officers with council approval)
- SDCL 9-14-13 (mayor's removal authority)
Cases and decisions:
- Olson v. Butte County Commission, 2019 S.D. 13, 925 N.W.2d 463
- Goetz v. State, 2001 S.D. 138, 636 N.W.2d 675
- In re Wintersteen Revocable Trust Agreement, 2018 S.D. 12, 907 N.W.2d 785
- In re Taliaferro, 2014 S.D. 82, 856 N.W.2d 805
- Ibrahim v. Department of Public Safety, 2021 S.D. 17, 956 N.W.2d 799
- In re Public Records Request of Larry Schmaltz of the City of Belle Fourche, Office of Hearing Examiners, May 17, 2022
Source
Original opinion text
OFFICIAL OPINION No. 23-01
Re: Official Opinion Concerning Aldermen Access to City Employee Timecards
Dear Mr. Willert,
In your capacity as a counsel for the City of Belle Fourche you have requested an official opinion from the Attorney General's Office on the following question:
QUESTIONS:
1.) Does South Dakota law give municipal aldermen authority to access individual employee timesheets?
2.) Does SDCL 1-27-1.3 mandate the disclosure of employee timesheets as public records?
ANSWERS:
1.) No state law authorizes individual aldermen to access municipal employee timesheets.
2.) SDCL 1-27-1.3 does not mandate the disclosure of employee timesheets as public records.
FACTS:
Aldermen for the City of Belle Fourche have claimed authority to access individual municipal employee timecards. These Aldermen have indicated their reason to review employee timecards is to verify the work schedules of certain city employees. The Aldermen claim they are entitled to access timecards because the Belle Fourche Common Council approves the hiring and discharging of employees. They also claim employee timecards should be available as public records pursuant to SDCL 1-27-1.3
A similar question recently arose in the City of Belle Fouche under the state's open records laws. A citizen requested city employee timesheets for two specific city employees. The request was denied by the City Finance Office under the provisions of SDCL 1-27-1.5 which exempts certain records from public disclosure. This denial was appealed to the state Office of Hearing Examiners which subsequently issued a decision upholding the denial. Decision & Order, In re Public Records Request of Larry Schmaltz of the City of Belle Fourche, Office of Hearing Examiners, May 17, 2022.
IN RE QUESTION 1:
You have asked whether state law gives aldermen the authority to access individual municipal employee timesheets?
The City of Belle Fourche is a first-class municipality operated under an aldermanic form of government. See SDCL 9-2-1; City of Belle Fourche, Code of Ordinances § 2.04. In considering the question you have presented, I have reviewed the pertinent statutes concerning aldermanic forms of government as well as those statutes of general application pertaining to municipal officers and employees.
According to state law the aldermanic city council consists of the mayor and all elected aldermen. SDCL 9-8-4. "The mayor presides at all meetings of the [city] council" and performs such "other duties as may be prescribed by the laws and ordinances[.]" SDCL 9-8-3. The mayor shall have no vote at city council meetings except in the case of a tie. Id.
The city council as a unit is responsible for conducting the business of a municipality organized under an aldermanic form of government. See SDCL 9-8-8 (a quorum is required to conduct business).
The mayor is the chief executive officer of an aldermanic municipality. SDCL 9-8-1. In aldermanic-governed municipalities, the mayor has the authority to appoint all officers of the municipality with approval of the city council. SDCL 9-14-3. Likewise, the mayor has the authority to remove appointed city officers and to report said removal to the city council. SDCL 9-14-13.
I have found no state law that explicitly directs who (mayor, city council, specific aldermen) has general supervision over municipal employees in an aldermanic-governed municipality. As noted above, the mayor of an aldermanic-governed municipality is the chief executive officer, but that role is not defined in statute. Similarly, state law is silent as to what authority an individual alderman has over municipal employees.
The Office of Hearing Examiners recently examined whether employee timesheets are public documents which may be disclosed. The Office of Hearing Examiners determined that city employee timesheets are exempt from disclosure to the general public pursuant to the provisions of SDCL 1-27-1.5. Decision & Order, In re Public Records Request of Larry Schmaltz of the City of Belle Fourche, Office of Hearing Examiners, May 17, 2022. SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) exempts personnel information "other than salaries and routine directory information" from disclosure. Further, records that would ordinarily be public are exempt if their release "would constitute an unreasonable release of personal information." SDCL 1-27-1.5(22). I agree with the conclusion reached by the Office of Hearing Examiners, city employee timesheets are exempt from disclosure under the state's public records laws.
Absent a specific law granting an individual alderman authority to access employee timesheets, I cannot find that aldermen have any greater right of access to this type of information than that enjoyed by the general public. Accordingly, I conclude, as to question 1, that state law does not give individual aldermen the authority to access municipal employee timesheets.
IN RE QUESTION 2:
You have also asked whether employee timesheets are required to be disclosed as a public record under the provisions of SDCL 1-27-1.3. That statute states in pertinent part:
The provisions of §§ 1-27-1 to 1-27-1.15, inclusive, and 1-27-4 shall be liberally construed whenever any state, county, or political subdivision fiscal records, audit, warrant, voucher, invoice, purchase order, requisition, payroll, check, receipt, or other record of receipt, cash, or expenditure involving public funds is involved in order that the citizens of this state shall have the full right to know of and have full access to information on the public finances of the government and the public bodies and entities created to serve them.
SDCL 1-27-1.3.
When interpreting a statute to determine its meaning, "'the language expressed in the statute is the paramount consideration.'" Olson v. Butte County Commission, 2019 S.D. 13, ¶ 5, 925 N.W.2d 463, 464 (quoting Goetz v. State, 2001 S.D. 138, ¶ 15, 636 N.W.2d 675, 681). "When the language in a statute is clear, certain and unambiguous, there is no reason for construction[.]" In re Wintersteen Revocable Trust Agreement, 2018 S.D. 12, ¶ 12, 907 N.W.2d 785, 789 (internal citations omitted). When the intent of the statutory language is unclear, "the intent of the legislature is derived from the plain, ordinary and popular meaning of the statutory language." Id. The intent of a statute "'must be determined from the statute as a whole, as well as enactments relating to the same subject.'" In re Taliaferro, 2014 S.D. 82, ¶ 6, 856 N.W.2d 805, 807 (citations omitted).
I conclude that the language of SDCL 1-27-1.3 does not mandate the disclosure of fiscal records but merely requires the exemptions found in the state open records laws to be liberally construed to allow the public access to government fiscal information. Having reached this conclusion, the exemptions found in SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) and (22) must be harmonized with the directive found in SDCL 1-27-1.3. Ibrahim v. Department of Public Safety, 2021 S.D. 17, ¶ 13, 956 N.W.2d 799, 803 (statutes to be construed together "to make them harmonious and workable").
As noted above, SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) exempts from disclosure all personnel information except "salaries and routine directory information." The language of SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) is clear and concise. A liberal construction of the language of the statute, aimed towards the public's right to access government fiscal records, does not mandate disclosure of employee timesheet information. The only personnel information subject to disclosure under SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) is salary and directory information.
SDCL 1-27-1.5(22) exempts from disclosure records that "constitute an unreasonable release of personal information." The Office of Hearing Examiners correctly noted that employee timesheets contain information that goes beyond the specific hours an employee worked and their consideration. Decision & Order, In re Public Records Request of Larry Schmaltz of the City of Belle Fourche, Office of Hearing Examiners, May 17, 2022. An employee's timesheet includes information on when that employee used sick leave, vacation leave, or took unpaid leave. Id. I join in the conclusion reached by the Office of Hearing Examiners; disclosing this information would be an unreasonable release of personal information. A liberal construction of SDCL 1-27-1.5(22), as required by SDCL 1-27-1.3, does not require disclosure of employee timesheets.
CONCLUSION
I conclude that state law does not give individual aldermen authority to access employee timesheets. The Legislature must clearly grant such authority if it is deemed necessary for aldermen to carry out their duties to their municipality. I also conclude that SDCL 1-27-1.3 does not mandate the disclosure of employee timesheets. The Legislature has made such records exempt from disclosure under the provisions of SDCL 1-27-1.5(7) and (22).
Sincerely,
Marty J. Jackley
ATTORNEY GENERAL
MJJ/SRB/dd