Against cuts to libraries and SDPB

Greetings! Week fourdown! It might sound wimpy, but we had a five-day week, which is too long to effectively do your job as a legislator.
The governor’s inauguration is over. Gov. Rhoden and his lovely wife, our First Lady, Sandy, are officially installed with all the pomp and circumstance that they deserve.
So, where are we at? First off, I’m 100 percent against cutting anything from our libraries or South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB). Most legislators feel the same way.
Remember, in South Dakota we have to balance our budget before we can end session March 14. No deficit spending like the federal government does year after year.
In defense of the budget that former Gov. Noem proposed, she was just doing her job, giving a speech with a balanced budget in mind. The long and short of our dilemma now is balancing the budget back to full funding. We have to come up with the money to not cut libraries and SDPB.
One area that gives us $4 million, plus the $1 million that it was going to take to run the program, is the issue of school vouchers. That proposal looks like it is dead, as it didn’t make it out of committee (was not approved by the committee). We are now post-deadline to drop, or propose, new bills for any new legislation. That’s not saying someone couldn’t “hog house” a bill and bring back school vouchers, but my hunch is that it is dead for at least this session.
Let’s visit about the 830-pound gorilla in the capitol, shall we? That is the proposal for a new penitentiary. The estimated cost is $830 million, but some think $1 billion is not an unlikely number. I think most everyone agrees that we have to build a new penitentiary. The current facility is at 182 percent capacity and was built in 1881.
Correctional facilities for male prisoners consist of “The Hill,” which is the main building where the general population is incarcerated. Then, on the same 35-acre complex in Sioux Falls is the maximum security prison called Jamison Annex.  Also, there is a new medical annex that we just built three years ago for $8-10 million. We also have a men’s prison in Springfield that is considered a minimum security prison.
On the women’s side of incarceration, we have a facility in Pierre and we’re building a new women’s prison in Rapid City. I always marvel when reading the Rapid City Journal about all the folks going to prison. Of course nothing is published about the inmates getting out of prison after serving their time. Also, if it’s in federal court, they go to federal prisons, none of which are in South Dakota.
Then there are the county jails which keep getting bigger and bigger.  Here’s a stat for you to ponder. North Dakota, with roughly the same population as South Dakota, has 1/2 as many prisoners. Why is that? If you have an answer, please let me know.
Where am I going with this prison talk? Well, like I’ve written before, some of us legislators don’t like the books so far. Nor do we like the plan. The plan now is to build an $830 million facility on 320 acres purchased for $25K an acre in Lincoln county. Actually, we are only using 160 acres and we bought the other 160 acres for future needs, such as if we need another prison in approximately 50 years.
I’m not going to dig further, other than the design and architectural drawing costing $42 million. Since seeing that, I’ve asked every engineer, architect or builder I could find how much that drawing should cost and the highest number I’ve been quoted was $10 million.
That’s enough right there in my opinion to hit the pause button and wait a year so we can dig into the books for the plan.
Also, Jamison and the medical facilities stay and only “The Hill” is relocating. This in itself increases operating costs significantly. The last figure I’ve heard was $21 million per year operating cost. With two locations, that’s going to be higher.
Again, where am I going with this? In the governor’s proposed budget, we need $182 million. The rest we have saved in a prison construction fund.
What if we could come up with a plan to have the entire men’s penitentiary facilities in one location? Is it possible to do that and not have to appropriate the $182 million and just pay cash? I’ll keep you posted.
Key property tax bills come up are: HB1019 (Goodwin), HB1119 (Ladner), HB1138 (Aylward), HB1191 (Lems), HB1229 (Hughes), HB1235 (Jamison), HB1193 (Peterson), HB1199 (Jensen), HB1234 (Jamison).
Other key bills for District 30 are HB1237 about West Dam in Custer, HB1063, a skilled labor facility in Hot Springs.
Until next week!