Brunner speaks at Beadle County Republican lunch
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HURON — K-12 school children are reaping the benefits from steadily increasing revenues from state-owned land and mineral leases and investments, the commissioner of the state School and Public Lands Office said Monday.
“Every year for the last five years we’ve set a new record for the amount of money generated from our surface leases,” Ryan Brunner said.
Overall revenues have risen from $7.4 million to $12.1 million, he said at the first in a series of weekly Beadle County Republican Party campaign lunches.
Brunner, a native of Midland, an hour north of Rapid City, is seeking a second four-year term in the November general election.
Married and the father of three young children, he has a degree in agriculture economics from South Dakota State University. While in Brookings, he served on the City Commission and also worked for a time for the local economic development corporation.
In his address before the GOP, Brunner provided an overview of the responsibilities of his office while also sharing a little state history in terms of how South Dakota came to own and hold land at the advent of statehood.
“In 1889, we got Section 16 and 36 of every township,” he said. That amounted to 760,000 acres of state surface land spread out across South Dakota.
“That land was set aside to be used for funding for schools, and a lot of constitutional protections were put in place to help with that,” Brunner said.
Some eastern states were the beneficiaries of land, too, but he said many of them sold it early on in statehood and spent the money rather than holding onto it.
In South Dakota, state-owned acres are leased at public auction. Successful bidders have five-year leases with five-year options. The rental money from the land, much of it in western South Dakota, goes to public schools.
For the surface land, revenues have increased from $4.5 million five years ago to $8 million today.
South Dakota also owns mineral rights on 5.2 million acres.
PHOTO BY ROGER LARSEN/PLAINSMAN
School and Public Lands Commissioner Ryan Brunner, seeking a second four-year term in the November general election, talked about the duties of his office at a Beadle County Republican Party campaign lunch in Huron on Monday.