2025 Legislative Session. What do we know?
January 14th was day one for the 100th legislative session. The chart below tells us several things about the legislature for the next two years.
· 60% reelection rate. 55 legislators were reelected to their same seat, 8 incumbents were elected to seats in the other chamber for a total of 63 (60%) incumbents that were reelected.
o The average reelect percentage is 72.5 or 69% (reelect + crossover)
o There are 6 former House members moving to the Senate (Historical average 7)
o There are 2 former Senators moving to the House (Historical average 1.4)
· 32 new people were elected.
o The average number of new legislators since 2007 is 27
· 10 former legislators are returning.
o The average no. returning legislators since 2007 is 6 (2023 there were only 2)
· 39 Women will be serving – a record.
o That is 37% of the legislature. Women are 50% of the population
· Democrats lost one seat in each the House and the Senate, leaving them with 9 members
What are Potential Issues?
Property Taxes – There will be numerous proposals to address increasing property tax bills that are happening across the state. Rep. Venhuizen is proposing to increase the state sales tax from 4.2% to 5%, raising approximately $280 million to be used to reduce school general fund and special education levies to zero. A property tax reduction of approximately 30%.
There will also be proposals to limit the increase in assessed valuations. Many of these proposals will shift taxes to newly purchased homes while rendering the assessed value of most homes far less than their true value. South Dakota used similar methods in dealing with increasing agricultural values and nearly rendered the property tax system unworkable. The Chamber will work to avoid making that mistake again. Touching one hot stove should be enough.
CO2 Pipeline – The defeat of RL 21 does not prohibit the CO2 pipeline from being built. The pipeline must fulfil the requirements of the laws that existed prior to the passage of SB 201. In fact the Summit company has submitted a new application. The South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry has supported the proposed CO2 pipeline and will continue to work toward its construction.
Education Savings Accounts/School Vouchers – Governor Noem has proposed spending $4 million on Education Savings Accounts. These funds would allow 1,300 to use vouchers worth $3,000 each to attend private schools or even purchase curriculum for home schooled students. These vouchers would be in addition to $5 million dollars of insurance premium taxes being used to fund students to attend private schools.
On top of the $9 million being directly spent or proposed to be spent on private education there is the impact on specific school districts as students no longer attend those districts. While the Governor has pledged to fully fund the state aid formula statewide each student that takes the $3,000 voucher means they will not attend their school district and because they do not attend the district will lose $7,400. If all 3,000 students take off it will cost those districts a total od $9 million. At some point these diverted funds will be hurting public schools. To paraphrase a classic old saying “$4 million here, $5 million there, $9 million on top of that, pretty soon you’re talking about real money”.
And so it begins.
|