Crossover Day – WOW – 23 different bills, a reconsideration; we got it done. All House bills had to clear our chamber and we got it accomplished. This was a high bar that was set as we had 325 bills that originated in the House that had to be dealt with in committees and then either killed or heard on the floor. Now, it is time to move forward to dealing with Senate bills and finalize the budget all within two and half weeks. Time to keep moving forward.
HB 1230: modify requirements for payment to employers’ investment in South Dakota future fee – this fund allows for money to support economic development in the state and also to fund sending students to State vocational education schools. This supports the Build Dakota Scholarship; this assists so many students who may not be able to go to schools and better themselves. This bill could cause the fund to run out of funding. Supporters of the bill said that the future fund has been abused. This may actually be true on some things; however, doing away with the fund is not the solution, the solution would be to set guard rails in place to prevent it from being abused. I voted no
HB 1278: prohibiting political committees from accepting contributions by certain officers or employees of this state – this bill is setting up guard rails to protect employees of the state government from being asked or pressured to donate to their employers running for a government office or re-election. There are still ways for these employees to support their candidate such as yard signs, testimony, posts, etc. They still have their rights to support their candidates. I voted yes
HB 1308: Property tax reduction bill— I was part of a small group of legislators (Rep Tim Czmowski, Rep Mike Weisgram, Rep Kent Roe, Rep Tim Goodwin and myself) who worked with many other small groups in the House of Representatives and even tried to pass an amendment to do away with the food tax and reduce owner occupied property taxes. This amendment failed so we reverted back to the original bill. The bill now would raise sales taxes from 4.2% to 4.7% in year one, and it would give state workers, teachers and CSPs a 2% cost of living raise every year instead of just using the general budget to fund this. The second year it would move the sales tax rate to 5% and that would give owner occupied residents a 29-46% property tax reduction. This was not a perfect bill, but it was moving forward to try to get some property tax relief for South Dakotans. I voted yes as it was a move in the right direction.
SB 156:An act to modify the crime of cruelty to an animal and increase the penalty therefore —this bill was brought because of a case in the Black Hills where proponents say that a horse was tortured and killed. The problem isn’t that we need to make sure this doesn’t happen; the problem was with the penalty that they wanted to impose, a Class 4 felony, 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. This would put the crime of cruelty to an animal in the same category as manslaughter of a human, vehicular battery, water-craft battery and also the fact that assault of an unborn child that eventually is born healthy is only a Class 1 misdemeanor. I voted no. This is still a heinous issue but the penalty in my mind doesn’t meet the same standards that I wrote about on this bill.
We have heard of another property tax relief bill that should be published within the next week which is gaining traction, and hopefully, we can come to some agreement to at least get some relief for property taxes.
There are two weeks left in the session and they appear to very busy as we try to finalize the budget process and make some very serious decisions for the State of South Dakota.
As always, Senator Wipf, Representative Greenfield and I will continue to work hard for District 22.
Representative Kevin Van Diepen
District 22
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