With this year’s South Dakota Legislative Session nearly in the books, the minority party is out with its critique. Both Minority leaders Senator Billie Sutton and Representative Spencer Hawley said the 92nd legislative session was a mix of the “good, bad and the ugly.” He says, although 58 million dollars short, they did manage to come up with a balanced budget with a .3 tenths of a percent increase for K-12, state employees and certain Medicaid providers. Hawley also touched on the Initiated Measure 22 repeal-replace measure saying that House Bill 1076 sponsored by Democratic Representative Karen Soli high was a good one
Senator Billie Sutton said they’re glad there was an increase for education providers, but that a large frustration exists that the dollars still aren’t there to help attract and retain instructors. He said there are added concerns about funding adequate salaries to help South Dakota’s developmentally disabled. He talked about his own community of Winner where the Community Connections program is located
Sutton is frustrated with how the campaign finance laws dealing with campaign contributions failed to gain traction in the final days of the session. He’s happy there will be a summer study in that area, but added the public needs to be reminded that nothing was done to improve campaign finance law. He says, overall, Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike are expressing concerns that not enough was done to address the state’s ethics laws. Sutton says that, in the conversation, the legislature must be careful not to limit the voice of South Dakota residents.
(KXLG)