City of Vermillion, South Dakota - Code Enforcement Department

City of Vermillion, Clay County, South Dakota. The city limit is the boundary that matters for both the permit requirement and the municipal sales and use tax; the surrounding unincorporated Clay County land carries neither.

city

25 Center Street, Vermillion, SD 57069

Required

Permits go through GovWell: the City states that it "partners with GovWell to provide all aspects of licensing for certain items. Applicants should register in GovWell to access all building, razing, sign, structure moving, and mobile home placement permit applications." The Building Official is on 605-677-7088 and the City offices are at 25 Center Street, Vermillion SD 57069. An application asks for building plans, the estimated cost of the project and plot plans. NO PERMIT FEE FIGURE IS PUBLISHED IN THE CODE, and that is deliberate rather than an omission: Section 150.03(B)(7) amends Section R108.2, Schedule of permit Fees, to read "Fees shall be set be Resolution of the City of Vermillion's Governing Body" - the "set be" is verbatim in the codified text and is reproduced rather than tidied. So a current fee figure has to come from the governing body's current resolution or from the counter. Note that the estimated cost of the project is asked for on the application even though the reroof permit trigger is an area test rather than a valuation test. STARTING WORK BEFORE THE PERMIT ISSUES CARRIES ITS OWN CHARGE, under Section 150.03(B)(8): "Any person who commences work requiring a permit on a building or structure before obtaining the necessary permits shall be subject to a fee established by Resolution of the City of Vermillion's Governing Body and shall be in addition to the required permit fees. Legal and/or civil proceedings may also be commenced." The City's own page says the same in shorter form: "Penalties are assessed on work started or completed without a building permit." On inspections, Section 150.03(B)(10) amends Section R109.4 so that "Work shall not be done beyond the point indicated in each successive inspection without first obtaining the approval of the building official," and adds that portions that do not comply "shall not be covered or concealed until authorized by the building official." The City publishes no inspection sequence, so which inspections a reroof will draw should be asked when the permit issues. Electrical and plumbing are not the City's to license: it enforces "The Uniform Plumbing Code as adopted by the State of South Dakota" and "The National Electric Code as adopted by the State of South Dakota," and directs those trades to the state Plumbing and Electrical Commissions. A rebilled permit fee sits inside the contractors' excise tax base, so price it with the 2.041% bid factor applied like the rest of the contract.

2018 International Residential Code. Vermillion Code of Ordinances Section 150.03(A) provides: "A certain document, 1 copy of which is on file in the office of the Building Official and 1 copy of which is on file in the Vermillion Public Library, designated as the International Residential Code, 2018 Edition, as published by the International Code Council, Inc., be and is hereby adopted as the residential building code of the City of Vermillion in the State of South Dakota... The minimum building standards in the International Residential Code, 2018 Edition, shall be applied to any building permit after effective adoption date." The section's enactment history runs "(Ord. 1126, passed 5-17-2004; Am. Ord. 1243, passed 12-6-2010; Am. Ord. 1307, passed 10-21-2013; Am. Ord. 1309, passed 3-17-2014; Am. Ord. 1393, passed 12-3-2018; Am. Ord. 1412, passed 2-3-2020; Am. Ord. 1502, passed 1-2-2024)," and the codification banner on the published code reads "2024 S-12 (current)." The City's own Building and Signs page corroborates and completes the list: "The City of Vermillion enforces the following codes: 2018 International Building Code[,] 2018 International Residential Code[,] 2018 International Mechanical Code[,] 2018 International Property Maintenance Code[,] The Uniform Plumbing Code as adopted by the State of South Dakota[,] The National Electric Code as adopted by the State of South Dakota." THE CHAPTERS VERMILLION DECLINES TO ADOPT ARE STATED EXPRESSLY AND NONE OF THEM IS THE ROOFING CHAPTER. Section 150.03(B) ends with three exclusions: "(33) CHAPTER 11 [RE] ENERGY EFFICIENCY. Not adopted by the City. (34) Chapters 25 through 32. Not adopted by the City. (35) Chapters 33 through 43. Not adopted by the City." Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies, is inside the adopted range. SOUTH DAKOTA'S FRAMEWORK IS AN OPT-IN WITH A CEILING, and it is the opposite of the arrangement in most states. There is no statewide residential building code: SDCL 11-10-6 sets a statewide 2024 International Building Code default and says it does "not apply to any residential structure." SDCL 11-10-12 makes residential adoption a municipal option, provides that a governing body "may enact requirements ... by adopting the 2024 edition of the International Residential Code," and bars it from imposing "any requirements that are more stringent than the requirements in the 2024 edition." That section did not exist before 2022-07-01, when SB 90 of 2022 created it naming the 2021 edition, and SL 2026 ch 59 raised the named edition to 2024 effective 2026-07-01. Vermillion's adoption names the 2018 edition by name rather than floating with the statute, so it has not moved as the statute moved. Nothing in SDCL chapter 11-10 requires a municipality to refresh its edition and the chapter states no sanction for any departure, so the 2018 code is the law in Vermillion until the City Council changes it. THE EDITION MATTERS FOR ROOFING HERE IN ONE PRACTICAL WAY: the 2018 edition states its design wind speed on a different basis from the 2021 and 2024 editions that neighbouring records in this reference use. See the wind design criteria entry.

Required — BASE-CODE GOVERNED, AND THE CITY DOES NOT AMEND IT. Vermillion adopts the 2018 International Residential Code, and its amendment list does not touch the drip-edge provision. IRC Section R905.2.8.5, Drip edge, reads in full: "A drip edge shall be provided at eaves and rake edges of shingle roofs. Adjacent segments of drip edge shall be overlapped not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall extend not less than 1/4 inch (6.4 mm) below the roof sheathing and extend up back onto the roof deck not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall be mechanically fastened to the roof deck at not more than 12 inches (305 mm) o.c. with fasteners as specified in Section R905.2.5. Underlayment shall be installed over the drip edge along eaves and under the drip edge along rake edges." THE ANSWER DOES NOT TURN ON WHICH EDITION GOVERNS: that section was read in the 2018, 2021 and 2024 editions and its text is word-for-word identical in all three. South Dakota supplies no competing rule - SDCL 11-10-6's statewide default expressly does not apply to any residential structure, so there is no state residential amendment to displace the adopted edition, and SDCL 11-10-12 lets a municipality adopt the named IRC edition but not impose requirements more stringent than it. The drip-edge requirement here is therefore the adopted code's own, not a local addition. That robustness matters here: Vermillion is on the 2018 edition while SDCL 11-10-12 now names the 2024 edition, and the drip-edge answer survives that gap unchanged. About drip edge

Required — Required. Section 150.03(B)(28) is Vermillion's own completed version of Table R301.2(1), Climatic and Geographic Design Criteria, and it carries the entry "Ice Barrier Underlayment Requirement yes." The adopted 2018 International Residential Code conditions its ice barrier requirement on the designation made in that table, and Vermillion has made the designation in the affirmative, so Section R905.1.2 applies: an ice barrier of at least two layers of underlayment cemented together, or a self-adhering polymer modified bitumen sheet, extending from the eave edge to a point at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall line of the building. Vermillion restates nothing further about how the barrier is to be installed, so the adopted code text is the whole of the local requirement. About ice & water barrier

Not required — Not required. Vermillion imposes no impact resistance rating, no Class 4 requirement and no hail rating on roof coverings. Section 150.03, which is the whole of the City's residential code adoption and amendment list, was read in full and then measured: UL 2218 occurs zero times, "Class 4" zero times, "Class IV" zero times, FM 4473 zero times. The Chapter 150 table of contents was also read in full and no other section touches roofing. The base 2018 International Residential Code imposes no impact requirement either. Keep the three roof performance questions separate: Vermillion does publish a 90 mph design wind speed and does require an ice barrier, and neither of those is an impact requirement. A hail-rated shingle may still be worth specifying on its own merits or for an insurance discount, but the City does not require one.

AN AREA TEST WITH A FIVE-YEAR LOOKBACK, NOT A VALUATION TEST, and this is the most unusual permit trigger in this reference. Section 150.03(B)(4), which amends Section R105.1 of the adopted code, carries a subsection (c) headed "Roof replacement" reading in full: "Permits for re-roofing shall be required when more than 50% of any building roof surface is being replaced or repaired in any given 5-year period." TWO CONSEQUENCES A ROOFER NEEDS, AND NO VALUATION-THRESHOLD JURISDICTION HAS THEM. First, REPAIRS ACCUMULATE. The test is measured over "any given 5-year period," so a sequence of small patch repairs on the same roof can cross the 50% line even though no single job does, and the roofer doing the job that tips it over is the one who needs the permit. Ask what has been done to the roof in the last five years before deciding no permit is needed. Second, the test is measured on ROOF SURFACE rather than on cost, so it does not move with material prices, does not change between a cheap and an expensive shingle, and is not affected by how much of the price is labour. A full reroof is over the line by definition. The drafting is deliberate rather than accidental: subsection (b) applies the identical rule to siding, "when more than 50% of any building wall surface is being replaced or repaired in any given 5-year period." The permit requirement itself sits in the same amendment: "Any owner or authorized agent who intends to construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish, replace windows, siding, roofs, or change the occupancy of a building or structure of which is regulated by this code, or to cause any such work to be done, shall first make application to the building official and obtain the required permit." Vermillion's Section R105.2 exempt list, eleven building items, was read in full and contains no roofing item, and the City's own Building and Signs page names "Roofing" outright in its list of work requiring a permit. Note the closing words of the amended R105.1, which are the one discretionary escape and are not a published threshold: "The building official may exempt permits for minor work." Confirm a borderline patch with the Building Official on 605-677-7088.

Design wind speed 90 mph, stated on the 2018 edition's basis. The full Table R301.2(1) as completed by the City at Section 150.03(B)(28): "Ground Snow Load (Footnote 1) 40 psf contour / Wind Speed (Footnote d) 90 mph / Topographic Effects (Footnote k) no / Seismic Design Category (Footnote f) A / Weathering (Footnote a) Severe / Termite Damage (Footnote c) Slight to Moderate / Winter Design Temperature -11 Degrees Fahrenheit / Ice Barrier Underlayment Requirement yes / Flood Hazards. (Footnote g) Vermillion entered the regular phase of the National Flood Insurance in 1975 Map numbers are 46027C0265C and 46027C0270C. / Air Freezing Index (Footnote i) 3,000 / Mean Annual Temperature 46 Degrees Fahrenheit." THE 90 MPH IS NOT A LOWER WIND LOADING THAN ITS NEIGHBOURS, AND THIS IS THE POINT ON THIS RECORD MOST LIKELY TO BE MISREAD. Nearby records in this reference print 112 mph and 115 mph for cities on the 2021 edition of the code. A wind speed means nothing without the basis it is stated in: the 2018 table's column is headed plainly "Wind Speed" and the figure is a nominal or basic speed, while the 2021 edition heads its column "WIND DESIGN - Speed (mph)" and states an ultimate design speed for the same physical loading. The two differ by roughly the square root of 0.6, so 115 mph ultimate corresponds to about 89 mph nominal - which is why 90 mph here and 115 mph an hour up the road are the same wind described twice rather than a disagreement. DO NOT ADJUDICATE, AVERAGE OR CORRECT ANY OF THE THREE FIGURES, and do not apply a figure stated in one basis to a design method or a product rating that expects the other. The error to avoid is treating an ultimate figure as though it were nominal, or the reverse, when selecting shingles or fastening schedules. This table reads unusually reliably: the published code renders it as running text with each label immediately before its own value, rather than as a grid, so there is no row and column alignment risk of the kind that affects a criteria table extracted from a PDF.

Two layers maximum - one overlay is permitted, and a second existing layer forces a tear-off to the deck. Section 150.03 is the whole of Vermillion's residential code adoption and amendment, and it was read in full: all thirty-five lettered items from R101.1 through the chapter exclusions at (33) to (35), plus the enactment history. It was then measured: R908 occurs zero times, R905 zero times, R903 zero times. The Chapter 150 table of contents was also fetched and read in full, and no other section of the chapter touches roofing. The exclusions are express and do not reach Chapter 9, so Roof Assemblies is adopted and unamended and the base code text governs. Section R908.3.1.1 of the 2018 International Residential Code provides that a roof recover shall not be permitted where any of three conditions occur, the third being "Where the existing roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering." The other two conditions apply whatever the layer count: a covering that is water soaked or has deteriorated to the point that it is not an adequate base for additional roofing, and an existing covering of slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile. NOTE THAT THE 2018 EDITION IS THE RIGHT ONE TO READ HERE. The three-condition form of this rule runs from the 2015 edition through the 2024 one, so the layer answer would be the same on a later edition, but the 2006 and 2009 editions carried a fourth condition about hail exposure that could force tear-off over a single layer. Vermillion is on 2018, so that fourth condition does not apply. South Dakota's statutory ceiling at SDCL 11-10-12 bars a municipality from imposing requirements "more stringent than" the edition the statute names, so local drift in this state runs toward the permissive rather than the strict. Vermillion has not drifted at all here.

SOUTH DAKOTA DOES NOT PUT A SALES TAX ON THE ROOFING CONTRACT, and the figure a customer sees on the invoice is 2.041%, not a municipal rate. SDCL 10-45-12.1 exempts construction services from the retail sales tax. In their place SDCL 10-46A-1 imposes "an excise tax upon the gross receipts of all prime contractors engaged in realty improvement contracts, at the rate of two percent," and SDCL 10-46A-3 applies that two percent to "the total contract price including all labor and materials. Materials include those purchased by the contractor and those purchased by the person who let the contract or his designee" - so a homeowner who buys their own shingles does not shrink the base. SDCL 10-46A-12 lets a contractor list the tax as a separate line item and makes that line "collectible from all entities," public and private. THE BILLED FIGURE IS 2.041% AND NOT 2%, because the tax is charged on gross receipts and the tax collected is itself part of those receipts. The Department of Revenue publishes a bid factor of 2.041% for use "when preparing a bid or bill," while "a straight 2% is used when calculating tax due on the excise tax return." The arithmetic is 0.02 divided by 0.98, which is 2.0408%. Both numbers are correct and they are not interchangeable. THE EXCISE IS IN ADDITION TO, NEVER INSTEAD OF, TAX ON MATERIALS. ARSD 64:07:01:13 makes the contractor the consumer of its own materials: contractors "are the consumers of materials and supplies purchased by them for use in their contract work ... the contractor may not purchase for resale supplies and materials and must pay sales or use tax on the purchases." So the roofer pays the 4.2% state rate plus Vermillion's 2.00% municipal sales or use tax on what it buys, 6.2% in total, as a cost of goods rather than as a line on the customer's bill. DO NOT READ THAT 6.2% AS A TAX ON THE REROOF; it is what the roofer pays on materials, and the customer's invoice carries a 2.041% excise line instead. The material rate follows where the material is used rather than where it was bought, so buying outside the city and installing inside it saves nothing. THE MUNICIPAL FIGURE, read cell exact from the Department of Revenue's own municipal tax schedule for the edition effective July 1 to December 31, 2026: Vermillion 2.00% municipal sales and use tax, city code 362-2. The city also levies a 1.00% municipal gross receipts tax, code 362-1, AND THAT TAX DOES NOT REACH ROOFING: SDCL 10-52A-2 enumerates a closed list of lodging, alcoholic beverages, eating establishments and admissions, and the Department's own rate table carries exactly those four columns and no construction column. A roofer who adds that one percent overcharges the customer. SOUTH DAKOTA LEVIES NO COUNTY SALES TAX, so there is no Clay County component to add; the local hazard is the city limit rather than a county line. THE STATE RATE IS SCHEDULED TO RISE AND THAT IS ALREADY LAW RATHER THAN A PROPOSAL: SDCL 10-45-2 is codified in two versions, the current one imposing "a tax of four and two-tenths percent" and a second headed "Effective July 1, 2027" imposing "a tax of four and one-half percent," both sourced to SL 2023 ch 32, which is HB 1137. Material costs rise by three tenths of a point on that date. ON PROVENANCE, no Department of Revenue publication names roofing. The determination runs through law rather than guidance - SDCL 10-46A-2 reaches contractors "enumerated in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual of 1987 ... construction (division c)," and ARSD 64:07:01:01.01 provides that "the gross receipts resulting from the services performed by a contractor listed in Division C of the SIC manual are subject to the contractor's excise tax, whether or not the results of such services constitute a fixture."