#herman otten

Last week the non-meandered waters committee met in Pierre for its fourth and final meeting. This leads up to the special session of the legislature convening on June 12. Since I took a look at the draft legislation going into the meeting, I thought it would make sense to also look at the legislation coming out of that meeting. In this particular post I will copy the text of each section and add…

Senate Tax has 2 bills on Mon Feb 8

On Monday, February 8, at 10:00 am the SD Senate Taxation committee will take on 2 bills. This is compiled using the agenda at the time of composing this post. Agendas can and do change! One way to listen to these meetings live is via the audio links on the Schedule page of the LRC website. While there you can also view the status board for the meetings as they are going on. HB 1101 (SoDakLiberty…

One bill prefiled for the School District Boundary Task Force

The School District Boundary Task Force prefiled one bill for the South Dakota 2016 legislative session. The task force was created by SB 134 (SoDakLiberty Posts) during the 2015 legislative session. SB 134 prevented minor boundary changes for one year and created the task force with these mission items: Examine the boundaries of the existing school districts and recommend possible changes to…

Last month, I wrote about the attempt by some school districts — principally those surrounding Sioux Falls — to make it harder for people to switch school districts. Their concern was that large amounts of their property valuation (and thus revenue sources) would leave. The current laws capping the property leaving at 2 percent of the old district's value don't protect them, the schools argued, because land that may be a cornfield and low-value today could be a housing development and high-value a few years down the road.

They wanted to change the rule so that 2 percent cap would consider future value of the land as well as its present value.

Read about it here.