Political Smokeout

Amendment would add ‘trigger’ to economic development plan

Economic development spending should be put on hold when the state experiences budget trouble, legislative leaders announced Wednesday.

In a proposed amendment to the “Building South Dakota” economic development package, funding for the program would be dependent on the state also giving normal yearly increases to K-12 education, Medicaid providers and state employees.

If those programs were funded regularly, then millions of dollars every year would be deposited in the Building South Dakota fund to pay for career education, affordable housing and infrastructure projects around the state.

If the state didn’t pay those increases, or cut those programs, then the money set aside from the state’s contractor’s excise tax and Unclaimed Property fund would instead go to the state’s general fund.

This “trigger” helped bring Gov. Dennis Daugaard on board with the economic development plan, assembled by a group of bipartisan legislators.

“The main issue or concern from the governor’s office was protecting the general fund, to be able to ensure that we can adequately provide for education, Medicaid, state salary policy, and those things,” said Pat Costello, Daugaard’s economic development director, who endorsed the Building South Dakota program Wednesday. “When we got comfortable with that, the governor could support the bill.”

Sen. Corey Brown, R-Gettysburg and the prime architect of the proposal, said it wasn’t a tough concession for legislators to make.

“My guess is we as a Legislature probably would have done that on our own (without the trigger),” Brown said.

Sen. Tim Rave, R-Baltic, said the trigger is good policy.

“The trigger mechanism makes it very clear that we will fund our priorities first. I think that makes total sense,” Rave said.

The trigger was part of a package of changes introduced Wednesday for Building South Dakota.

The bill is expected to pass out of a conference committee of House and Senate members Thursday morning, after the amendment is tweaked to address legislator concerns.

Brown also proposed seeding Building South Dakota with $7 million in one-time money. The program’s funding stream won’t start in earnest until 2015. The $7 million will let the state start spending money on education, housing, roads and other areas right away.

Another change in the proposal is more specifics about the education funding it contains. For the next three years, the workforce education subfund — which gets 30 percent of the total Building South Dakota fund — will pay for English language education in K-12 schools. That will cost about $1.9 million for the first year, and around $1.3 million in future years.

The next $1.5 million in the fund will go to high schools to pay for career and technical education. Any money in the workforce education subfund after that will be given as bonuses for K-12 education.

The legislative committee will meet at 9 a.m. to amend and approve Building South Dakota. It would then head to both the House and Senate to be adopted.

So far it seems to be maintaining its bipartisan support. No one testified against the package on Wednesday, or at its prior hearing before a House committee. It faced some opposition on the House floor, primarily from legislators who argued it should be split into multiple bills, but a majority rejected those challenges

Members of both parties praised Building South Dakota Wednesday.

“I’m hopeful we can iron out these details,” said Sen. Jason Frerichs, D-Wilmot. “It almost feels like the 11th hour, but it is not. We still have time left in the session to work through these problems.”

Rave agreed.

“It’s just a great comprehensive piece of legislation,” he said. “I think it’s a great compromise bill that really addresses a lot of areas of need.”

School sentinels bill passes committee 5-4

A proposal to let schools arm volunteer “sentinels” to protect against threats is on its way to the South Dakota Senate.

The school sentinels bill, House Bill 1087, passed a key Senate committee 5-4 Friday, and needs only approval from the Senate to head to Gov. Dennis Daugaard to be signed into law.

Under the proposal, school boards could vote to arm sentinels provided local law enforcement approved and the sentinels underwent training with the state.

Rural schools, located far from local law enforcement and without police resource officers, want the proposal’s flexibility, advocates said.

“If we think we’re immune in South Dakota from school violence, we should probably think again,” said Sen. Craig Tieszen, R-Rapid City. “Our local school officials and local school boards need to be making a decision about the security of their schools.”

Rep. Scott Craig, R-Rapid City, and other supporters emphasized the local control.

“For the schools that do not want ever to have anybody armed… they should want this bill,” Craig said. “It is this bill that guarantees that they make the decision to never have anyone armed.”

But what Sen. Larry Lucas called “the (key) issue of the 2013 legislative session” has plenty of opponents. Most major school groups testified in opposition, saying the sentinels program was risky and unwanted.

Jeff Marlette, a general in the South Dakota National Guard and the superintendent of the New Underwood School District, lamented that South Dakotans would now ask if “our state has gotten so bad and so dangerous and so unsafe that we must now attend school in an armed fortress.”

Lobbyists for the state’s school boards and school administrators proposed an alternative, to set up a task force studying school security. If that task force recommended school sentinels, they said, they could support it, but saw the current proposal as too rushed.

“This amendment would give you another option to talk about school safety,” said Wade Pogany, executive director of the Associated School Boards of South Dakota. “Let’s put a task force together that’s made up of these stakeholders and bring recommendations so school boards could have options to look at.”

But the committee rejected that amendment, with members questioning whether such a task force would produce new mandates and objecting to the last-minute nature of the proposal.

The Senate committee did make several changes to the proposal, notably removing a section added in the House that kept decisions about the sentinels program secret.

Tieszen, the prime sponsor of the bill, endorsed that change.

“This must be a publicly made decision,” Tieszen said.

Rep. Hal Wick, R-Sioux Falls, supports keeping the decision private. He said it would keep would-be attackers in the dark about which schools were and were not defended, and thus provide more protection to everyone.

Once a district has adopted a sentinels program, decisions about it — such as which people were armed — could be made behind closed doors.

Another change might be coming in the full Senate. Sen. Larry Rhoden, R-Union Center, said he’s interested in specifying that voters can refer a decision to create a sentinels program to a public election.

Senate passage isn’t assured, with many lawmakers skeptical. Sen. Jason Frerichs, D-Wilmot, suggested the sentinels bill wasn’t necessary because volunteers could be deputized by their local sheriff to defend the school.

Sen. Corey Brown, R-Gettysburg, said he likes the concept but has too many unanswered questions.

“If we’re going to do something like this, I need to feel more than reasonably confident that we’ve covered all our bases,” Brown said.

But supporters said the sentinels program is both needed and well-thought-out.

“I don’t think anyone has promoted this as the ultimate solution to the problem we face,” said Rhoden. “But it is a step.”

Sen. Dan Lederman, R-Dakota Dunes, said it was a good proposal that keeps decisions with local government.

“What I like about this bill is its permissive nature,” Lederman said. “This bill will maximize local control.”

Sen. Russell Olson, R-Wentworth, lambasted schools for opposing the local option.

“Do you just want the softballs? Do you just want the easy decisions?” he asked school representatives. “When it gets tough should it come back to the Legislature? Make up your mind.”

The Senate must take action on the sentinels bill by March 5, though it has yet to be scheduled for debate. Because the Senate has amended the version passed by the House earlier this month, the House would then get another vote, to either approve the Senate version or try to negotiate a compromise.

Craig said House members will likely be divided on whether removing the secrecy provision is a good move.

If the Legislature approves the sentinels bill, it will head to Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who likes the concept and is studying the proposal’s specific details.

How will Senate State Affairs vote on ‘sentinels’?

Earlier, I speculated about what the decision to send the school sentinels bill to the State Affairs committee instead of the Education committee meant for its fate.

Yesterday, I did something better: I checked on each of the members to see what they thought about it.

A few of them were on the record with opinions about the bill; those who weren’t, I called.

You can read more about the state of the sentinels bill here.

Here’s where things stand now with the Senate State Affairs Committee:

• Brown: Undecided. Doesn’t have a problem with the “concept” but is “struggling” with a few components of the bill.
• Frerichs: Doesn’t ”support the bill in its current form,” would need “to change it pretty drastically” to vote for it.
• Johnston: Has called the sentinels bill premature, saying other discussions of school security needs to come first.
• Lederman: A sponsor of the bill, has spoken critically of making schools gun-free zones.
• Lucas: Is “not going to support it.”
• Olson: Supportive as long as it maintains its local control.
• Rave: Leaning toward supporting the bill, but is “well aware of the concerns” and could change his mind.
• Rhoden: Supportive; believes the state should “let the local governing body make the decision for themselves.”
• Tieszen: Prime sponsor of the bill, has testified for it.

Taking a bit of a leap (some of these statements have been more decisive and clear than others), I’d categorize the committee like this:

Yes votes (4): Lederman, Olson, Rhoden, Tieszen

No votes (3): Frerichs, Johnston, Lucas

Undecided (2): Brown, Rave

With nine members on the committee, the bill needs five votes to pass, and is already one short. If either Brown or Rave votes yes, or one of the no votes changes their mind (without any yes votes flipping), House Bill 1087 will probably pass out of committee.

The ghosts of HB 1234

Voters may have rejected Referred Law 16, but parts of that omnibus reform package are making their way back before the Legislature this year.

First there was Senate Bill 187, letting school districts opt out of “continuing contract” or teacher tenure.

Now Sen. Tim Rave is sponsoring Senate Bill 233, creating a scholarship for teachers in critical-needs fields.

Another victory for the tourism tax bill

The extension of South Dakota’s tourism surtax took another step toward passage Friday.

The measure, supported by broad margins in both political parties this year, would make permanent a half-percent surtax on visitor-related purchases during summer months in South Dakota.

In the absence of action, that tax is scheduled to fall from 1.5 percent to 1 percent.

But the Senate State Affairs Committee unanimously approved a bill making the 1.5 percent rate permanent Friday morning.

A range of tourism officials and business owners testified in favor of the measure Friday, arguing the cost of the tax was more than outweighed in the benefits it brought to the state.

Senators on the committee agreed the measure was necessary, but differed in their enthusiasm.

“I can’t tell you how much I support this initiative,” said Sen. Mark Johnston, R-Sioux Falls.

Sen. Tim Rave, R-Baltic, was more cautious.

“Is tourism more important than health care, or is it more important than schools?” Rave asked, before voting for the bill.

The tourism tax bill, House Bill 1066, already passed the House of Representatives 64-4. If the full Senate passes it, it will head to Gov. Dennis Daugaard to be signed into law.

The governor supports making the tourism tax permanent.

Forum move heightens focus on Minnehaha County GOP election

The next hotly contested election in Sioux Falls could be the one to lead the Minnehaha County Republican Party.

The GOP group for South Dakota’s largest county hit the spotlight this week with its decision to boycott traditional legislative forums sponsored by the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce and hold its own at the same time.

The county party’s leadership includes many outspoken conservative activists. Several of its top figures, including chairwoman Lora Hubbel and parliamentarian Daniel Willard, have clashed with established Republican officials including Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

Its decision to compete with the Chamber-sponsored forums drew cold shoulders from many local Republican officials and a rebuke from the statewide Republican Party.

Now some GOP lawmakers are talking about getting more involved with the party’s operations — something they haven’t always taken the time to do.

“We’re all busy. We all have lots of conflicts,” said state Sen. Mark Johnston, R-Sioux Falls, who noted that “organizations are run by those who show up.”

Since the legislative forum announcement this week, Johnston said, he has had “more than a dozen people call me and email me and tell me maybe it’s time I show up.”

Johnston lives in Lincoln County, and so wouldn’t be eligible to vote in the Minnehaha County GOP elections. But his sentiments are mirrored by other lawmakers who do live in Minnehaha County.

State Sen. Tim Rave, R-Baltic and the outgoing chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party, said he’s heard a few people express “renewed interest in the process of county party activity.”

Things could come to a head in the early afternoon on Jan. 26, when the county’s central committee meets to elect a new chair.

Hubbel, an outgoing state representative, isn’t going to be a candidate.

She said she welcomes renewed interest from Republican lawmakers, who have voting rights on the county party’s central committee.

But she doubted an establishment-backed candidate could win an election as chair, predicting another conservative activist would succeed her.

The central committee Minnehaha County Republican Party is made up of a man and a woman from each precinct in the county, plus elected Republican legislators and Minnehaha County officials.

The precinct representatives are elected every two years in Republican primaries.

Not all the precinct committeeman and committeewoman spots are full but the incomplete roster has 71 people.

Elected officials bring the total number of voting members up to about 100, though some legislators such as Rave and Sen.-elect David Omdahl are also elected precinct committee-people in their own right.

The Jan. 26 meeting will take place after the dueling legislative coffees, the Chamber-sponsored one at the Holiday Inn City Centre and the party-sponsored event at the Ramada Hotel & Suites.

It’s the first of four legislative coffees for each group, all on the same days at the same times.

But state Rep. Manny Steele said that might also be the last legislative coffee hosted by the county this year.

Steele, a vocal defender of the county party’s decision to break off and hold its own forums, said the party might end up cancelling the last three events.

“I really doubt there’s going to be any extra legislative coffees put on by the Minnehaha County (GOP),” Steele said. “I would assume they’re going to have the first one.”

Renting rooms and holding question-and-answer sessions is expensive and hard work, Steele said. He argued the party’s announcement helped get “the message across” about the party’s concerns that the crowds and moderation at the Chamber-sponsored legislative coffees were too liberal.

Hubbel, however, didn’t see the party backing down.

“I think once people realize more about it… then they’ll come on board,” she said. “They just get a little bit of information and get scared that there’s something different here, even though they’ve been complaining about (the Chamber forums) for years. Once they realize that (the party forums) was not anything bizarre, it’ll be welcome.”

Twilight of the big ideas?

In this morning’s Argus Leader conversation with Sen. Tim Rave, Sen. Mark Johnston and Sen.-elect Deb Soholt, the Argus Leader editorial board asked the group about vision — whether the governor or lawmakers would be bringing any bold and big new ideas that would leave a real mark on the state this year, as opposed to tinkering around the edges and fighting over incremental increases in funding.

Rave said the issue was not so much a lack of big proposals, but a difficulty getting them through the 105 legislators and the governor’s veto.

But Johnston had perhaps a more interesting answer. He said the people of South Dakota might not be wanting big ideas from their government right now.

“I don’t know if the voters of South Dakota support that type of grand vision at this time in our history,” Johnston said. “There were some big initiatives on the ballot (this year), and they said, ‘not right now.’”

Is Johnston right? In the 2012 election, South Dakota voters rejected both big changes to education and economic development and taxes and small changes like letting lawmakers receive more than five cents per mile for their trips to and from at the start and end of the session.

Does that suggest South Dakota citizens just want a caretaker-type government, that keeps the budget balanced and basic functions going but mostly just keeps things how they are?

Or are voters open to visionary leadership and bold changes to how the state works?

Senate Republicans choose leaders

This morning, the Senate Republican caucus met in Pierre and elected its leadership  team for the next two years.

Current Majority Leader Russell Olson, R-Wentworth, was reelected by his colleagues for another term leading the caucus; Olson said this election was not contested.

The new President Pro Tempore of the Senate is Sen. Corey Brown, R-Gettysburg. He replaces outgoing Sen. Bob Gray of Pierre, who was term-limited.

Sen. Tim Rave, R-Baltic and the chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party, was elected as the assistant majority leader.

There are three whips: Sens. Ryan Maher, R-Isabel, Larry Rhoden, R-Union Center, and Dan Lederman, R-Dakota Dunes.

Olson wouldn’t divulge any details about any of the other elections, saying they were internal caucus races and he wanted to be fair to any potential losers in leadership battles.

The Democratic caucuses in both houses will be meeting Friday night to choose their leaders. The House Republican caucus (aka Drama Central) will reportedly meet on Saturday.