SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — From inmate medical needs to staffing, the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office has plenty to monitor as they work to improve operations at the Minnehaha County Jail.

Members of the sheriff’s office discussed what’s going well and areas that need improvement during the Minnehaha County Commissioners meeting Tuesday.

During Mike Milstead’s time as Minnehaha County Sheriff, the current Jail was built and renovated, which gives Milstead unique insight for the Prison Project Reset task force launched by Governor Rhoden.

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“It will be interesting to see, having gone through two major projects moving from an old, poorly designed facility into modern, efficient design and heavily utilizing technology, to see how that matches up at all with what we start working on with the prison reset group,” Milstead said.

Another topic discussed by the sheriff’s office was the high demand on the jail’s medical staff.

“The medical need at the jail is historically high. That continues. With the population that comes in into the jail, there’s not a whole lot of preventative care that goes on prior to coming to jail. While I say preventative care, there’s really not a lot of care at all that goes on on the streets prior to coming to jail,” Minnehaha County Chief Deputy Sheriff Jeff Gromer said.

While discussing the needs for people inside the jail, the sheriff’s office also talked about what they’re doing to keep people out of custody.

“Between our 24/7 program and our Pretrial Services Program today, we’re monitoring more people outside of custody than we have in the county jail,” Milstead said.

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“We’ve done a really good job of developing and implementing programs that help us keep people out on the streets, so people that we can safely monitor and work through the system on the streets are not coming to jail,” Gromer said.

“They can continue to work, support their family, support the community, pay their taxes,” Milstead said.

Milstead also says the number of inmates in jail is similar to what it was a year ago. In addition, the sheriff’s office hired 43 new employees for the jail in 2024 with 38 of them still employed with them now.