IOWA GOVERNOR EXTENDS DISASTER PROCLAMATION FOR BIRD FLU IN SIOUX AND PALO ALTO COUNTIES
PALO ALTO COUNTY, IA- On Sunday, December 8th, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has extended the disaster proclamation for the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or bird flu, for Sioux and Palo Alto counties effective immediately through Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, according to information released by the governor’s office.
On Friday, Dec. 6, Gov. Reynolds authorized a disaster proclamation for Sioux County after a positive case was confirmed in commercial layere chickens.
The United States Department of Agriculture confirmed positive cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPA) in both counties.
The governor’s office says this proclamation allows state resources from Iowa Homeland Security and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to be used to help detect, monitor, contain and disinfect bird flu in Iowa.
Additionally, this proclamation also waives regulatory provisions for commercial vehicles in affected areas.
The governor’s office says the recent detection of bird flu does not present an immediate public health concern and it continues to be safe to eat poultry products.
If Iowa producers suspect signs of HPA in their flock, contact their veterinarian immediately.
DIRECTOR SAYS PROPOSED FUNDING CUT COULD SINK SDPB IN AS LITTLE AS TWO YEARS
VERMILLION, S.D. (John Hult / South Dakota Searchlight) – South Dakota Public Broadcasting could cease to exist in as little as two years if lawmakers adopt Gov. Kristi Noem’s $3.6 million budget cut, the network’s executive director said Friday.
Julie Overgaard sounded that alarm during a meeting of the Educational Telecommunications Board, which acts as an advisory council for SDPB.
Noem proposed the funding cut, which amounts to about 65% of SDPB’s state funding, during her annual budget address on Tuesday. The governor has proposed $82.7 million in cuts across state government in response to lower state revenue compared to the past few years.
Noem also proposed $10.7 million in new spending, $4 million of which would go toward $3,000 education savings accounts that lower-income families could use to pay for private school tuition, homeschooling and other forms of nontraditional schooling.
SDPB and its associated nonprofit fundraising organization, Friends of SDPB, have sent emails to supporters and offered statements to the media outlining the immediate impact of a 65% budget cut. In the near-term, it could mean a loss of all original state and local programming, including high school activities broadcasts, the radio show “In the Moment” and television programs like “Dakota Life” and “South Dakota Focus.”
Overgaard’s message to the telecommunications board on Friday was more stark. She called Noem’s budget “devastating news.”
Donors send their money to Friends of SDPB in large part to support local programming. Without local programming, Overgaard said, that support would dry up.
“At best, we have about a 24 to 36 month lifeline,” Overgaard said. “I don’t think there is much point in pretending this is not as serious as it is.”
Kay Jorgensen, who chairs the telecom board, said the budget proposal is worthy of a more serious look than the group had time for on Friday. The board had a full agenda, one set up before Noem’s budget speech.
Members heard about SDPB’s financial health from its accountant, about the popularity of its high school football coverage this fall from its content director, and about an audit performed by Eide Bailly.
The audit found no financial disparities, ethical concerns or areas where SDPB strayed from best practices, one of its authors told the board. The draft audit document notes that SDPB serves 90% of the state’s geography and around 382,000 households.
“I don’t think there’s an organization in the country that can defend and be proud of its broadcast work more than the team at South Dakota Public Broadcasting,” Jorgensen said after hearing from Overgaard.
Layoffs, lost programming, potential insolvency
In a follow-up interview with South Dakota Searchlight, Overgaard said the $3.6 million cut would trigger a 50% reduction in support from the federal Corporation for Public Broadcasting, from $2 million annually to $1 million. The formula for grants from the corporation factors in state or local matching dollars.
SDPB currently has 64 full-time employees, not counting employees of Friends of SDPB. Most of the SDPB employees would lose their jobs if the cut goes through, Overgaard told Searchlight.
The shallow funding pool left after the cut wouldn’t be enough to pay for much more than engineering and network maintenance, she said.
It would likely be possible for SDPB to continue recording and streaming legislative committee hearings, floor debates and meetings of the state’s various oversight boards and commissions, but there would be no news coverage.
The money could also maintain the infrastructure needed for Amber Alert and emergency alert messages, which originate with law enforcement and are distributed by SDPB’s network to the state’s commercial broadcast systems.
Beyond that and national programming – all of which is funded through donations from listeners and viewers, Overgaard said, not through tax dollars – there would be little left of the SDPB that exists today.
If SDPB cannot remain financially solvent, she said, the state would need to find another way to get emergency alerts to its citizens.
Per capita spending comparison inaccurate, broadcaster says
In 2006, lawmakers passed a $500,000 cut to SDPB in the waning days of the legislative session. Lawmakers found themselves inundated with comments from constituents and restored the funding.
Ryan Howlett, CEO of Friends of SDPB, told the board Friday that the group saw a major fundraising spike immediately following Noem’s budget address.
“We’ve been really buoyed by people, by their support with not only their dollars, but their willingness to contact their legislators in their district and the administration of the state of South Dakota on our behalf,” Howlett said.
Howlett told Searchlight, however, that a short-term fundraising bump does nothing to solve the larger problems that would follow a state funding cut.
Larry Rohrer, a South Dakota Hall of Fame member known as the voice of SDPB, hopes listeners and viewers continue to rally behind the network.
Rohrer, who’s now retired, helped lead the network into the internet age, setting up the communications network that has streamed legislative debates since 2000. A little more than a decade later, Rohrer helped shepherd through the operational framework for SD.net, which streams and archives not only legislative coverage, but meetings from boards and commissions or agencies like the Public Utilities Commission.
Some lawmakers were skeptical of streaming legislative debates, Rohrer said, but the skepticism dissipated quickly.
“What eventually happened was that the legislators heard from their constituents that they liked this,” Rohrer said.
Broadcasting high school activities has also buoyed SDPB’s reputation, he said. That’s at least in part because the network broadcasts not just popular sports like football, but a wide range of sports and arts activities that might have a smaller but dedicated following.
“This is the question that we asked internally: I want you to tell me which of those 35 high school championships don’t deserve to be on TV,” Rohrer said. “I dare you to answer that question, because the truth is they all do.”
In her budget speech, Noem told lawmakers that SDPB’s state funding is among the highest in the nation per capita.
Noem’s office did not offer a response to Overgaard’s comments on SDPB’s solvency, nor did the Bureau of Finance and Management.
Rohrer said he doesn’t know where that per capita figure came from, but said it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Few states have radio and television under one roof through a state-held broadcast license as SDPB does, as opposed to separate radio and television networks, one or more of them licensed through a university or independent nonprofit. Even fewer offer services that range from emergency alerts and year-round government meeting livestreams to live coverage of events like the annual Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup.
The trouble with using a per capita figure, Rohrer said, is that it leaves out the nuance.
“You can say that in 10 seconds,” Roher said. “For me to explain the different flavors of public stations and the variety of services takes five minutes. Some people don’t have time for that. My hope is that people would take the time to look deeper and understand that this is not a 10-second narrative.”
LAWMAKERS PROPOSE SALES TAX INCREASE TO PROVIDE PROPERTY TAX RELIEF FOR HOMEOWNERS
PIERRE, S.D. (Makenzie Huber and Seth Tupper / South Dakota Searchlight) – Several South Dakota legislators said Thursday they will introduce legislation that would provide property tax relief to homeowners by raising the state sales tax rate.
Rep. Tony Venhuizen, R-Sioux Falls, announced the effort.
“Property tax is the number one concern for my constituents and across South Dakota,” Venhuizen told South Dakota Searchlight. “This is the year for major property tax relief.”
Property tax reform has been a concern in the Legislature for years and was the subject of a legislative study last summer. Many legislators ran on the promise of property tax relief in the June primary and November general election. Since 2017, property tax payments have gone up 47% for owner-occupied homes and 36% for commercial property, while rising 3% for agricultural property.
Venhuizen said Sen. Randy Deibert, of Spearfish, will be the prime Senate sponsor of the property tax relief legislation. Sen. Amber Hulse and Rep. Trish Ladner, both of Hot Springs, and Rep. Tim Goodwin, of Rapid City, will be cosponsors. All are Republicans.
Ladner said she also plans to introduce legislation to complement Venhuizen’s. The bill would cap increases in the valuation of owner-occupied homes and commercial properties at 3% annually, among other changes. Valuation escalation is a primary driver of property tax increases.
“3% is doable. You can plan for it,” Ladner said. “There’s a momentum we didn’t have last year. I believe now is the time.”
The proposals will be debated when the legislative session begins Jan. 14 at the Capitol in Pierre.
Venhuizen said his legislation would reduce the property tax levy on owner-occupied homes for general education and special education from $4.167 to zero, thereby saving homeowners $416.70 for every $100,000 of a home’s assessed value. He expects the proposal to save homeowners $280 million in total, with an average property tax reduction of 35% per homeowner.
Because it’s “just not possible” to deliver meaningful property tax relief without replacement revenue, Venhuizen said, the legislation would be funded by raising the state sales tax rate from 4.2% to 5%. The legislation would thus shift some of the burden for funding public education from homeowners to consumers.
“Owner-occupied property taxes are paid entirely by South Dakota residents. Sales tax is paid, in part, by visitors,” Venhuizen said. “This is a tax cut for South Dakota residents.”
Venhuizen said he expects the sales tax increase to raise an equivalent amount, $280 million.
Neither Venhuizen nor Deibert could say what percentage of current sales tax is paid by tourists and out-of-state visitors. They hope to present some idea to the Legislature when the session begins.
Nathan Sanderson, executive director of South Dakota Retailers Association, said his primary concern — without seeing a draft bill yet — is ensuring property tax burdens aren’t shifted onto commercial properties. He added that while property taxes for homeowners have been a concern in the last decade, he believes it will sort itself out eventually.
“The problem you’ve got is the thing that is being taxed is increasing at a tremendously high rate. That’s not going to continue forever,” Sanderson said. “As long as there are property taxes, there will be folks who think they’re too high.”
The use of sales taxes to provide property tax relief would mean non-homeowning South Dakotans would not see a tax cut. They would only see a sales tax increase. Despite that, Deibert said the increase would not be very noticeable for South Dakotans, especially low-income residents.
“We’re reducing property taxes by $400 per $100,000 valuation. It takes a lot of purchases — those normal or essential purchases — to accumulate $400 in sales tax,” Deibert said. “If someone is out there who can afford a car or TV or refrigerator, they’ll contribute to this fund at a higher rate than someone who doesn’t have the income to purchase those things.”
Rob Monson, executive director of School Administrators of South Dakota, said relying on the “ebb and flow” of sales taxes for education funding concerns him, especially given the lower revenues reported this fiscal year.
“You have no control over what people are buying or not buying,” he said. “Property is always there. It’s a real thing. The valuation is a real thing that can change and be manipulated up or down. You don’t have control over sales tax.”
Venhuizen said when sales tax revenue dips, it’s made up in future years. Deibert said schools’ needs will be met.
“It’s a legitimate concern, but another concern is managing your budget and reducing spending during lean years,” Deibert said. “We have to educate our kids well, but not tax our people out of their homes to do that.”
Republican Gov. Kristi Noem did not include any property tax relief proposals Tuesday in her annual budget address. She did call for tax relief.
“Last year during this speech, I asked you to make a permanent tax cut for the people of South Dakota – and I am reiterating that request today,” Noem said. “Our people deserve better than a temporary sales tax holiday.”
The “holiday” reference was to legislation she signed in 2023 that lowered the state sales tax rate from 4.5% to 4.2%, with a sunset in 2027. Legislators and then-Gov. Dennis Daugaard raised the state sales tax rate from 4% to 4.5% in 2016 as part of a plan to boost teacher pay, but the state currently ranks 49th in average teacher salaries.
Venhuizen expects more property tax relief proposals this session.
“If we want to really have a serious discussion about property tax relief as a Legislature, we need to start with a baseline of what that looks like, what the cost is and how to pay for it,” Venhuizen said. “Every discussion starts with a proposal, and that’s what we’re offering here.”
SOUTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH REPORTS FIRST FLU DEATH OF THE 2024-2025 FLU SEASON
PIERRE, SD – The Department of Health is reporting the first influenza death of the 2024-2025 season, a Corson County resident in the over 65 years age group.
“Influenza can be a very serious illness,” said Dr. Joshua Clayton, State Epidemiologist for the Department of Health. “Taking preventative measures like regularly washing hands, covering your cough, and getting vaccinated if you choose against the flu will protect you and your family.”
Clayton noted it is still early in the flu season with only 215 lab-confirmed flu cases and 15 hospitalizations reported; however, an average of 33 South Dakotan deaths are reported each year.
During the flu season all South Dakotans are encouraged to take the following preventative actions to help slow the spread of the flu:
Avoid close contact with people who are sick;
Wash your hands often with soap and water or alcohol-based hand gel;
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth;
Cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze; and
Stay home if you are sick.
In addition to preventative actions, yearly flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone age six months and older. Groups like pregnant women, children younger than five years, people over 65 years, and people with chronic medical conditions are at higher risk for flu-related complications. Healthcare workers and household contacts of high-risk populations, such as those with young infants, should also be vaccinated.
A list of participating locations offering flu vaccines in your community can be found online. For more information and the latest resources visit the DOH website.
Influenza is a virus spread by respiratory droplets when an infected person talks, coughs, or sneezes. Common signs and symptoms of the flu include fever, cough, sore throat, headache, fatigue, body or muscle aches, and runny or stuffy nose.
