I was going to note in my post on Amendment C and my questions about the Legislative Research Council’s ability to reliably determine the future cost of initiatives that the Legislative Executive Board Monday had hired Aaron Scheibe, one of Governor Kristi Noem’s ever-changing chiefs of staff, as LRC code counsel.
But Scheibe appears to have gotten a better offer. The E-Board reconvened unexpectedly Wednesday afternoon to conduct a short executive session to address one agenda item: “LRC Personnel”. After that brief closed-door discussion, the E-Board opened the door and voted to offer Michael Loesevitz $115,000 a year plus moving expenses to serve as LRC code counsel.
This new hire is probably the Michael Loesevitz, a Mormon certified public accountant and lawyer who served as LRC’s senior legislative attorney from August 2019 to March 2021. Even during that stint, he kept working for Brady Martz and Associates of Grand Forks, where he helped clients wrassle with the IRS. Given that the $115K offer is a 44.5% raise over Loesevitz’s last listed pay of $79,560, the E-Board can perhaps expect that this time, Loesevitz will give his LRC position his full attention. The offer to Loesevitz is also a 2.7% bump over the $112K the E-Board offered its last code counsel, John McCullough, last July.
Related Payroll: According to Open.SD.Gov, the state Bureau of Information and Telecommunications at some point employed Loesevitz’s teenage son Wesley for $10.80 an hour. If BIT can bring Wesley on and give him the same raise Dad is getting, Wesley will get $15.61 an hour.