2020 SD Legislature: Legislative session in final weeks

PIERRE – Week Seven of our Legislative Session began Monday, Feb. 24. We already had our las Legislative Coffee at Bethany Meadows on Feb. 22, but I still encourage anyone who has questions to please give me a call or send an email.  

Last week was “cross-over” day, which is the last day to send proposed legislation from one the House to the Senate and vice versa. So, all of the House Bills that passed our Floor debate have been delivered to the Senate.  

As of Monday morning, we heard several Senate Bills which covered things ranging from election issues to collective bargaining at the Board of Regents to Sports Wagering. All of those issues will be heard on the House floor this week.  

Throughout my years in the Legislature I have been disappointed in the ability of the Legislature to adequately analyze the budget, but this year we have made the effort to more carefully compare the needs versus the wants of state agencies. One example is in the request by the Unified Judicial System to add seven more probation officers to handle the client load so they can more effectively supervise, which should result in fewer people failing while on probation. We inquired of the UJS as to how many probation officers they actually needed, and the answer was 20. Their request was lower simply because they didn’t think the funds were going to be available this year. We will hopefully be somewhere in the middle by the time the budget is complete. The role we (House and Senate) should be playing is to take a comprehensive view of the entirety of state government and make those decisions ourselves instead of allowing the agencies to either ask for too much or too little to achieve their goals.  

In the past few weeks the budget news has been more optimistic than it was, but, another element came into play and that was a higher than expected medical cost for the last quarter. The state received claims for medical costs of state employees that were much higher than projected. This was due to a few very expensive health care items. This is again another example of why we need to more carefully examine the entire budget and get our agencies to increase efficiencies as well as sharpen the focus on their goals.

Please remember to have your high school students consider being a “Page” in next year’s legislature. We appreciate their work and each group seems to find the experience both educational and an expansion of their future options for service.

We are now down to our last two weeks. If you have considered a visit to Pierre during the Session, you are down to the last days. We will do all we can to accommodate your time here with tours or guidance as to which committee hearings to attend.

Please listen to the proceedings live on South Dakota Public Broadcasting or go to the Legislative Research Council’s website to listen to the recorded committees and floor debate. That’s found at:  https://sdlegislature.gov/

As always, please feel free to contact me at steven.haugaard@sdlegislature.gov