Getting ready to drop property tax bill

Greetings again! Week three of the 100th legislative session is over. This past week Lt. Gov. Rhoden became the 34th governor. Gov. Rhoden then selected Rep. Tony VenHuizen as his lieutenant governor and both chambers approved his selection. On Thursday Tony took the oath of office becoming our Lt. Governor.
I’ve known of Lt. Gov. VenHuizen since the republican primary of 2002. In that primary, then State Sen. Rounds threw his hat in the ring for governor. The only problem was he was running against two Republican giants, they being the Lt. Gov. Steve Kirby and the attorney general Mark Barnett.
Now, remember this was a republican primary and all three candidates are Republicans. So to say the three of them held hands and sang kumbaya? Well, that didn’t happen. My recollection is that the lt. governor and attorney general went after each other pretty hot and heavy and Rounds didn’t say a bad word about either; he just asked the voters for their vote.
What happened? Probably the biggest upset in state political history. Rounds won the primary, went on to win the election in November against democrat Jim Abbott. He served two four-year terms as our governor, and is on his second six-year term as one of our two U.S. senators.
Where am I going with this? Good question! Lt. Gov. Tony VenHuizen was, back then, state senator Mike Rounds’ campaign manager. Tony went on to serve in various roles.
When I first got in the legislature in 2017, Tony was Gov. Daugaard’s chief of staff and went on to serve a couple of years as Gov. Noem’s chief of staff. He then went on to the private sector. He moved his family from Pierre to Sioux Falls and was practicing law. This is his second term, third year in the legislature serving district 13 out of Sioux Falls.
As I’ve mentioned before, all the candidates I saw on Gov. Rhoden’s short list were outstanding individuals. I wholeheartedly support Lt. Gov. VenHuizen and look forward to working with him and Gov. Rhoden.
So, what about getting something done in the legislature? Another great question.
HB1019 has been introduced, (we call it dropped), and should go to a committee hearing soon. You can look up all bills at sdlegislature.gov. In this case, HB1019, the HB stands for House Bill and the 1019 is the bill number. HB1019 has Sen. Hulse, Rep. Ladner and myself as co-sponsors. Lt. Gov. VenHuizen was the prime sponsor. So, now that he’s not a legislator any longer, we will have to pick a new prime sponsor, probably someone who is as passionate about property tax relief as the three of us, but preferably from East River as that’s where the votes are.
Oh! So, what’s HB1019? It’s about raising sales tax from 4.2 cents to 5 cents. This will generate $280 million in revenue, all earmarked by law to go to single dwelling, primary homeowners. This results in $417 dollars in tax relief per 100K assessment. So, if your home is assessed at $400K (4x417=1668) - yep - that’s $1,668 in property tax reduction.
Let’s say you were paying $4,000 a year in property tax and your home is assessed at $400,000. Your property taxes will go down $1,668, so $4000-$1668=$2,332.00. Let me restate that under this scenario—your taxes drop from $4,000 to $2,332. Is that a hooah or what?
Seems like a no-brainer, right? The problem with trying to stick up for us homeowners is that we don’t have any lobbying groups. I take that back. The only lobbyists a homeowner has are his one senator and his two representatives. I can assure you the three of us from District 30 are totally committed to passage.
There are many arguments against this bill. Seriously? Yep. One of which is, “what about the poor people?” My response is that this additional 8/10ths of a percent is 3 cents on a $4 loaf of bread. Plus, the poor people already have a program commonly still called food stamps, with which they get their groceries for free. But I digress.
A couple of other hot bills to watch: HB1163, to appropriate a fund to build a veteran trade center to assist those veterans who are suffering from PTSD.
HB1025, the penitentiary bill! Man do I have a lot to talk about concerning the $825 million penitentiary. But, out of space until  next week!