I plan to reintroduce property tax bill

Greetings. Every place I go every one approaches me about property tax relief. Some even say that I promised property tax relief. I did promise I would try and Rep. Ladner and Sen. Hulse and I most definitely did try. They can give you a rundown of their property tax bills. I’ll do just mine in this article.
My bill, HB1016, along with the other property tax bills (19 in all) were sent to State Affairs Committee, not the tax committee. Consequently State Affairs was swamped because it had the usual workload of what should be state affairs bills along with an additional 19 property tax bills. They were even meeting after session was over in the evenings a lot of times in order to get the hearings in. 
Remember, in South Dakota, every bill gets a hearing. Legislators submit their bills. The speaker of the House decides what committee the bill is going to for a hearing.
The speaker is the person that picks who is on each committee and who the chairman of each committee will be. He or she also decides where everyone sits on the House floor.
I’ll never forget when I first got elected the speaker then sent my two bills to State Affairs. One bill was letting anyone who had a military ID to legally have an adult beverage. The other was to have every legislator take a drug test the first week and the last week of session each year.
I thought that drug bill should have gone to the judiciary committee and that my military ID bill should have gone to State and Local Government, the committee that handled military and veterans bills at that time. Back then we didn’t have a Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. We were the only state legislature that didn’t have a Military and Veterans Affairs Committee in the nation. To add insult to injury, we in South Dakota have the highest number per capita of vets in the entire nation. Here I go digressing again.
Back to property tax relief. Once the 19 property tax bills were sent to State Affairs, not the Tax Committee, a hearing was held. Any guess about the outcome?
My bill was the first on the docket. Of the 13 State Affairs members, three didn’t show, probably so that they would have no voting record against property tax. 
Of the 10 who did show, eight voted nay and two voted yea. So HB1016 was defeated. If it would have passed, it would have gone to the House floor for a full debate and a vote of the entire body of 70 House members.
If it had passed that, then it would have done the same in the Senate (committee hearing and vote). If it had passed that, then to the Senate floor for debate and vote of 35 members. If it had passed there, then on to the governor’s desk for a signature making it law. If vetoed there, then back to both chambers to attempt a two-thirds vote to override the governor’s veto. A two-thirds vote in the House is 47 votes and 24 in the Senate.
So, back to now. Once bill HB1016 was defeated, I had three options: 1. Do nothing and let the committee vote stand; 2. Within three days ask for reconsideration; or 3. “Hog house” the bill to another bill. This means using the bill number that’s up on the House calendar and changing the bill, or “hog housing” it and replacing it with my bill, HB1016, which is what I did.
I intentionally waited all session for the other 18 property tax bills to go down in defeat before the State Affairs committee. Not the Tax Committee. They all did.
Another worthwhile point is each of these 19 property tax relief bills had Department of Revenue personnel testifying as opponents to the bills, urging the State Affairs committee to vote nay or against the bills.
Now, I understand the Department of Revenue looking out for revenue coming into the state is their job to do. However, in my case, HB1016 would have increased revenue while at the same time lowering owner occupied property taxes by reducing $417 for every $10,000 of property tax assessment. So, if you have a $500,000 assessment, like my trailer house does, it would be five times $417, equaling $2,085 in property taxes relief.
The coolest part of the HB1016 is that it’s paid for up front without taking any services away from counties, which of course includes schools. This is done by increasing state sales tax from 4.2¢ to 5¢, the same as North Dakota. This would generate $280 million in additional revenue that would be dedicated by law to go to owner occupied homeowners.
I say this because of constantly being reminded that video lottery profits were supposed to go to education and instead went into the general fund. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. Also, the truth of the matter is nowhere in the bill did it say video lottery money was to go to education. Consequently it went to the general fund at a tune of $160 million last year.
Let’s end on a positive note. Good news: every legislator is up for re-election on June 2, 2026. HB1016 had a vote of 35 yeas and 34 nays with one absent. we needed a two-thirds vote or 47 because of the tax increase, even though it was owner occupied decrease. 
This session I plan on running the exact same bill and only need to pick up 12 votes, so from 35 to 47. Now every legislator says they are for property tax relief but 34 voted nay. So, here’s their chance to prove they are actually for property tax relief and vote yea.