The sixth week of the historic 100th Legislative Session in the great State of South Dakota is in the books.
We continue to spend a lot of time debating bills that don’t really affect anything. We also have several bills that are on the same subject that may conflict with each other. We sure didn’t save any lives, but had a few major votes explained below.
My Bills:
HB 1157 raises the maximum fee for a County Drainage Permit Application to $500. The current $100 fee created in 1985 does not cover the costs of notifications, postage, public advertising, and site inspection. Any costs above the $100 fee are subsidized by the rest of the county taxpayers. This passed 64-6 and will be sent over to the Senate.
HB 1155 revises the annual reporting period for public safety answering points. I presented this bill on behalf of the 32 Municipalities, Counties, and Tribal Governments with a Public Safety Answering Point (commonly known as a PSAP or a 911 Center), who are required to report 911 Fee information to the State of South Dakota using the state fiscal year. This information is then passed onto the FCC. Although this reporting period may be convenient for the State of South Dakota, this is a major fiscal reporting inconvenience for the 32 PSAPs, as they use a calendar year fiscal system and need to extract information from two different fiscal years. This results in additional costs, redundant work, and errors. This bill will change the reporting period to the calendar year. This bill was passed out of committee unanimously, placed on the consent calendar, and passed on the floor. It will now move over to the Senate.
On Wednesday, we had a visit from Representative Dusty Johnson, who gave us a pep talk and update on some of the sweeping changes in Washington and across the country. Thursday was Mitchell Day at the Legislature, where I was able to recognize the Leadership Mitchell class. They provided a popcorn ball on each Legislator’s desk, which was a huge hit!
Local Government Issues:
In the Local Government Committee, we sent HB 1043 to the 41st day to die but should have sent it to the Appropriations Committee since there is funding tied to it. This bill requires counties and municipalities to provide emergency medical services, which would cost several million dollars. Davison and Hanson County commissioners are meeting this week to work on establishing a rural ambulance district. This is their choice, not a state mandate.
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. Rather than focus on getting this material out of the library, this bill focused on locking up those criminal librarians. This bill passed 38-32, which may justify that new prison we keep talking about.
HB 1261 is a bill written with the assistance of a Planning District, who has vast knowledge of how local zoning operates. This bill will strengthen the relationship between the County and Townships. SD is an agriculture and business friendly state. Conditional Use Permits (CUP) are the responsibility of the County Board of Adjustment (BOA). Mandatory notification from the Applicant and County will allow the Township to have a voice in the application approval process, which they currently do not. BOAs have the ability to set conditions on the CUP. With the Townships at the hearing, they will have the opportunity to add their conditions. If the applicant doesn’t comply, the permit is revoked.
Right of ways are “dedicated to the public, for public use forever”. This legislation is in response to a Township wanting to enact an ordinance to restrict the use of a dragline used to apply manure from a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). These are used a couple weeks in the Spring and Fall and the Nutrient Management Plans are highly regulated by County Zoning and the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR). Ordinances need to be compatible with the County Comprehensive Plan, which considering SD is an Agriculture State, would promote value added agriculture and animal feeding operations. This bill passed 38-32.
HB 1218 from last week was reconsidered. This bill would prohibit county, municipal, and townships from imposing firearm restrictions on employees. This bill was brought by a Hartford City Councilman and was opposed by many people and government agencies. This bill also has insurance and liability concerns, as there is no firearms training required. I spoke against this bill, since it just focused on government buildings. If we have open carry laws, why not allow this in any building? If a Hartford City Councilman wants this, why doesn’t he start with his own City Council? This bill was passed 44-26.
SB 97 will allow the governing body of a municipality to change the use of municipally owned parkland by ordinance. Currently, it is required to be a vote of the people. The land is still required to be used for public use.
State Issues:
HB1025washeavilydebated to transfer $148,109,837 to the Incarceration Construction Fund. This bill was amended to remove the authorization to construct the prison. Discussion quickly went off the rails discussing the location, the need, counseling services, etc. However, the vote on the floor was to transfer funds. The prison will eventually be built. We need a new prison. I hate the fact that we do, I hate the fact it is so expensive. Kicking the can down the road will just increase the costs. Myself and one other Representative are the only ones I know of who have actually worked in the prison system, but we sure have a lot of prison experts in the room. This bill failed 34-35.
HB 1164 would revise the process for nominating candidates for lieutenant governor. Essentially, it would allow the Governor to pick their own Lieutenant Governor. The House State Affairs voted 8-5 to kill this bill. After a smokeout on the floor, the bill passed 43-27.
HCR 6003 is a resolution to address property taxes. Not actually doing it, just saying we should support it. This bill passed 64-6.
HB 1266 would move the South Dakota State Brand Board from the Department of Agriculture & Natural Resources to the Office of School and Public Lands. I’m not sure how much cattle experience School & Public Lands has, but we may see because this passed 47-22. Governor Rhoden has been in office for 26 days, but we aren’t willing to give him a chance to fix the problem. Let’s just shift it to another department.
Telling Schools How to
Run Their Business:
HB 1200 would permit merit pay as a component of teacher compensation. However, can’t a school already pay their teachers what they want to pay their teachers? This bill was amended to say merit pay would be given to teachers with twenty years’ experience. Merit pay is for performance and should have nothing to do with longevity. Rule 5-17 was invoked, which delays the action to the next day.
HB 1152 would prohibit the enforcement and implementation of directives from intergovernmental organizations. This was a bill to prohibit agencies like the World Health Organization to give us directives. However, the unintended consequences is this bill may have caused problems with SURF contracts at the underground mine. This bill Failed 32-37.
HB 1193 would prohibit the Board of Regents and institutions under its control from requiring students to reside in on-campus housing or purchase meal plans. This bill was amended, but still a bad idea with a possible $87M implication to the schools. This bill failed 28-42.
HB 1180 would require school board candidates to disclose their party affiliation in elections. Politics should not be an issue on a school board, they are there to make good decisions for the school, faculty and students. This bill failed 31-39.
HB 1259 would prohibit unauthorized access to certain multi-occupancy rooms. Good idea, but there are some unintended consequences that will affect schools, again. This passed 49-21.
Local Business Issues: HB 1132 excludes income earned at a childcare center, to determine financial eligibility at the childcare center for employees. This is a move in the right direction to ensure we maintain sufficient staffing at childcare centers. This bill passed 3931.
HB 1223 would provide for conscience exemptions from certain vaccinations. This bill was bad for businesses. The bill failed 34-36, with a motion to reconsider. The following day the reconsider to calendar also failed 35-35.
Other Issues:
HB 1260 would require birth certificates and certain official documents to reflect biological sex. This bill helps nobody, but clearly shames a specific group of citizens. This bill was tied 35-35, with a request to reconsider. The reconsideration vote failed at 34-36.
HB 1236 would expand the safety zone within which hunting and trapping are restricted. Essentially, it increases the road hunting distance to ¼ mile. This bill passed 51-19.
HB 1165 would move the grain checkoff refund paperwork from the checkoff association down to the elevators. The reason was the process was too difficult. However, many people who contacted me against this did not mention the process, but rather they were angry how the dollars were spent on a controversial issue at the last election. This bill tied 34-34 with a reconsideration request. The bill was amended to just require the reimbursement form to be available online. I don’t think we saved any lives on this one forcing an association to put a form online. This bill passed 40-30.
Appropriations continues to find a way to balance the budget. There were several cuts proposed that will be looked at to be saved.
I look forward to discussing issues of importance with the citizens of Jerauld, Sanborn, Miner and Davison Counties. If you have any concerns, feel free to contact me at jeff. bathke@sdlegislature.gov.