After experiencing the last nine weeks of many unneeded bills, I think we have run out of meaningful laws to make in South Dakota. We could show up for one day and approve the budget and call it a day. Appropriations did a great job finalizing the budget, restoring many proposed cuts to the state budget.
We have tried to tell school boards and administrators, city councils and mayors, and county commissioners what to do on a weekly basis. Local control is only good until we don’twanttogivelocalcontrol. A Representative from Brookings, who is a retired School Superintendent, said, “We should rename the legislature the State School Board.”
We are not funding a prison, airports, school vouchers, or half of the technical school equipment, not renaming the Department of Corrections, not putting chaplains or the Ten Commandments in schools, not suing China, not allowing eminent domain, not cutting Bert, Ernie and Big Bird, not giving daycare workers a break, not supporting Big Pharma, not breaking the leases on the One-Stop Centers, and not locking up those criminal librarians!
We are giving a loan to build a school outside Ellsworth, allowing weapons in schools, bars, and city/ county employees, lowering an ingestion charge to a misdemeanor, expanding road hunting safety zones, making repairs to the capitol, increasing criminal offenses for boat operators, building on to the Veteran’s Cemetery, capping assessed values at a 3% yearly increase, making a bunch of voting laws, and created an unclaimed property trust fund.
We still aren’t sure what bathroom to use or what gender to put on our Driver’s License. We chased away any attempt at economic development, but most importantly, you don’t have to be a veterinarian to float horse teeth. The problems we solved!
Bills/Concerns:
A couple of weeks ago, Mitchell received the Community of the Year Award from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. I submitted a Commemoration to honor the city for this, which was approved in the House. Commemorations are rarely opposed, as why would you? They are normally just recognizing someone or an entity for doing a good thing. Well, it headed over to the Senate and a Senator from Dell Rapids opposed the Commemoration. No reason is required. My assumption is this was retaliation for me voting no on a bill he has brought for several years and continues to fail. I asked, he wouldn’t tell me why. The Governor will be writing a Proclamation, which serves the same purpose as the Commemoration.
We held a ceremony for the Governor to sign SB 37, which provides funding and revises the annual reporting period for public safety answering points (commonly known as a PSAP or a 911 Center). This was a Department of Public Safety bill which will assist the 32 Municipalities, Counties, and Tribal Governments with a PSAP.
Property Taxes:
Property Tax discussion consumed the majority of Monday, with three bills considered.
SB 169 was hog housed with what was previously HB 1019, which is a bill to reduce the school portion of property tax on owner occupied property to zero, which would be picked up by an increase in sales tax from 4.2% to 5%. I supported this bill, which failed to receive a 2/3 majority with a vote of 2742. Some have criticized this bill on social media as “the largest tax increase in the history of South Dakota”. Do the math on your own home. The school portion of your property tax is roughly half of the total. An increase in sales tax from 4.2% to 5% will cost you $8 for every thousand dollars you spend. You have to buy a lot of stuff before you would lose money on this deal. This would provide immediate relief.
SB 191 would roll back the assessed values to 2020 values, then increase by 3% annually to the current year. This bill has many conflicts with other statutes and is estimated to remove $16 billion from assessment rolls leading to a $42 million loss in local funding. I could not support this bill, which failed 7-62.
SB 216 commonly referred to as “the Governor’s Bill”, caps the average assessed value increases at 3% for the next five years on owner occupied residences under $500,000. Amendment J set a 3% growth, adds a fiveyear sunset, and maintained targeted relief for disabled and elderly, with an assessment freeze at the base year at age 65. This will have a negative effect on a handful of communities who have significant yearly growth. This will also have no relief for anyone with a residence over $500,000. This bill received a 2/3 majority with a vote of 53-16.
School Business:
For some reason we didn’t pick on schools this week. SB 70 will modify the maximum benefit a sparse school district is eligible to receive. This adjusts an out-of-date amount and helps around ten schools.
State Issues:
SB 127 was an airport terminal improvement and expansion bill, which failed to receive a 2/3 majority and failed 37-32. This bill would have provided grants to airports across the state to make needed improvements. This is an economic development issue, to have sufficient terminals.
HB 1132 was vetoed by the Governor. We have experienced a daycare shortage issue across the state. Many are subsidized through federal grants. This bill would expand the program, giving a benefit to the workers at the center, which are difficult to find. There isn’t any day care worker getting rich out there. This bill originally passed 39-31 in the house and 20-14 in the senate. The 2/3 vote override failed at 27-43.
HB 1239 was disguised as a bill to eliminate dissemination of harmful material to minors, commonly referred to as “the librarian bill.” However, this bill doesn’t actually remove any harmful material from the library. The prime sponsor routinely stated this would not send a librarian to jail if someone under 18 accesses the harmful material. However, this bill directly affects Title 22-Crimes. Last year a bill was passed to restrict the material in libraries, but this didn’t go into effect until January 1st. This bill just wasn’t needed and was out to just punish librarians. This bill passed, but the senate amended the bill and returned it to the house removing the strict penalty on the librarians. This was a big win and many in the community were happy.
SB 113 would provide protections for parental rights. At the request of DSS, this bill was amended to add a sentence explaining a parent could not use this law to challenge a proceeding dealing with abuse of a child. The senate removed the amendment and returned it to the house. A motion to “do not concur and do not appoint” was supported. However, 31 members of the house are not in favor of protecting children and voted against this! Luckily, 39 voted for this and the bill was killed.
Budget Issues:
HB 1046 is the supplemental bill for 2025, which decreased the budget by $74.6 million, of which many are just right sizing program utilization.
We also supported paying off a large bond with one time money, which will free up ongoing money. Another $22.8 million was placed into a trust fund, which was established for all future unclaimed property money. Rather than have an unknown amount of unclaimed property each year for one-time expenditures, this trust fund will allow the legislature to budget knowing only the interest is able to be spent. This bill passed 64-6.
SB 55 is the school tax levy bill. With the 1.25% increase recommended, this is actually a 6.4% reduction in the overall levy, due to the growth. Representative Mortenson gave an excellent speech on the floor explaining the process of how the levy is set. The need can be increased by 3% or inflation, whichever is less. The Department of Revenue takes the assessed value of the entire state, then determines the amount of state funding. This bill passed 58-12.
SB 220 is the general appropriations bill, commonly referred to as “the G Bill”. The official title is a bill to appropriate money for the ordinary expenses of the legislative, judicial, and executive departments of the state, the current expenses of state institutions, interest on the public debt, and common schools. The final budget was $7,299,897,219. The majority of this budget provides for operating expenses, while the remainder provides personal services for the 14,095.3 state employees. The state budget has increased 78% in the last ten years, but we continue to tell schools, cities and counties to quit spending all the money.
The budget provides a 1.25% increase for state employees, healthcare providers, and schools. Appropriations also restored $7.5 million in proposed funding cuts to SD Public Broadcasting, Veterans Benefits, Civil Air Patrol, Assisted Living Centers, and other line items. This bill passed 59-11.