MURDO FIREFIGHTER KILLED IN CRASH RESPONDING TO DRAPER GRASSFIRE
Jones County, S.D. (KCCR) – A Murdo firefighter died enroute to a large grass fire in a single vehicle crash Saturday evening, four miles north of Draper, SD.
The name of the person involved has not been released pending notification of family members.
The Murdo Volunteer Fire Department has confirmed the death of one of their members in response to a grass fire near Draper Saturday night.
The Department released a statement confirming the line-of-duty fatality on social media Sunday.
Meanwhile the South Dakota Highway Patrol has confirmed the death of a 37 year-old Murdo man from a one-vehicle crash four miles north of Draper, Saturday night around 6:50 pm. According to the preliminary crash investigation the driver of a 1989 Ford Fire Tender was traveling north on 279th Street while responding to the fire. The vehicle left the road, rolled and threw the driver from the fire apparatus.
The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
The fire grew to approximately 12-hundred acres and forward progress of the blaze was stopped. Pierre and Fort Pierre firefighters gathered Saturday night along Sioux Avenue out of respect as an escort of the firefighter arrived in Pierre.
The South Dakota Highway Patrol is investigating the crash. All information released so far is only preliminary.
LOCAL PUBLIC BROADCASTING CUTS WILL HAPPEN ON OCTOBER 31 WITHOUT NEW FUNDING ACCORDING TO DIRECTOR
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (John Hult / South Dakota Searchlight) – South Dakotans should know what stays and what goes at South Dakota Public Broadcasting — absent a philanthropic or state budget lifeline — within the next two weeks.
Whatever happens, SDPB’s director says, the public will have two months’ notice before programs and voices disappear.
The recent congressional clawback of federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting cost SDPB about $2.2 million, which is about 20% of its budget.
SDPB is a state entity, and its staff members are state employees. The organization also receives support from the nonprofit Friends of SDPB.
Julie Overgaard, SDPB’s executive director, told budget committee lawmakers this week she’s looking at layoffs for up to 20 staff members and local content cuts across its radio and television operations as a result.
The state’s Educational Telecommunications Board reviewed a proposed downsizing plan in a closed door session in Sioux Falls on Friday afternoon. The board’s charge is to ensure SDPB operates within the legal corners of its broadcast licenses.
After the executive session, Overgaard told South Dakota Searchlight “we’re going to do everything we can to save our statewide coverage and all of our broadcast licenses.”
“Nobody should see their SDPB radio or TV signal go away because of this,” she said.
The downsizing plan will have an audience with the board for the Friends of SDPB on Monday.
After that, Overgaard will show the plan to the commissioner of the Bureau of Information Technology — the government office under which SDPB is nested — and Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen before offering it to Gov. Larry Rhoden for final approval. The governor needs to approve layoffs for state agencies, Overgaard said.
If Rhoden signs off, staff and the public — in that order — will be notified of “the people and programs we’re going to lose, if there is no fix applied.”
“It’s not the state’s job to fill that entire fiscal hole,” Overgaard said, but she hopes the governor will at least consider funding to help SDPB continue livestreaming state government proceedings. The state owns the equipment used to livestream legislative and other government meetings, while the money to operate it comes from the SDPB budget.
Friends of SDPB intends to dip into its endowment to make sure none of the content changes come until Oct. 31, and Overgaard said the intervening months will determine how many of the plan’s listed layoffs and program cuts ultimately come to pass.
“To the extent that we’re able to fundraise, find foundation support and find business support, those things will come off the list,” Overgaard said. “People will be reinstated, programs will be reinstated.”
Kay Jorgensen, president of the Educational Telecommunications Board, urged SDPB’s supporters to “do what they did during the legislative session,” by throwing their support behind the system.
Former Gov. Kristi Noem had proposed an evisceration of SDPB’s state-level funding before her departure to join President Donald Trump’s cabinet as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. State lawmakers rejected those efforts.
Before the closed-door session, the board heard a report on the system’s financial health through June, the month before Congress opted to ax public media money. SDPB was in the black and living well within its means, Jorgensen said.
In the face of the new reality created by congressional recission, Jorgensen added, “our goal is to stay lit, and to serve the public as we always have.”
“We would ask the public to articulate their views on why public broadcasting is so important, to share it with their friends and neighbors, and certainly with the policymakers on the local, state and national levels,” Jorgensen said.
FEEDING SOUTH DAKOTA REQUESTS $3 MILLION FROM LEGISLATURE TO FILL FEDERAL LOSS
PIERRE, S.D. (Makenzie Huber / South Dakota Searchlight) – Feeding South Dakota is the first of what could be multiple nonprofits asking the Legislature for help to recover from federal funding cuts.
Executive Director Lori Dykstra requested $3 million in one-time funds at the legislative Appropriations Committee meeting Wednesday in Pierre to offset 1.5 million pounds of food no longer being provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture since March.
Feeding South Dakota partners to provide food to 265 smaller food pantries and food insecurity organizations throughout the state. “If we don’t have food, they don’t have food,” Dykstra said.
The nonprofit’s budget typically runs just over $10 million and is nearly entirely privately funded. The $3 million of state funding would help the organization purchase the lost 1.5 million pounds of food and purchase additional food to meet the expected increased need, Feeding South Dakota Vice President of Marketing Stacey Andernacht told South Dakota Searchlight after the meeting. The cost to purchase that much food fluctuates, rising to $2.7 million as of July 25.
Tea Republican Sen. Ernie Otten, who serves as co-chair of the budget committee, warned lawmakers of hard choices to “pick winners and losers” in the next legislative session. The committee learned of an up to $24.5 million shortfall in projected general fund revenue for this fiscal year, and Otten said because of federal cuts affecting state departments and nonprofits, “every agency and group will have their hands out.”
Sen. Taffy Howard, R-Rapid City, questioned ways that Feeding South Dakota could get churches and South Dakotans to contribute more, rather than relying on state or federal funding.
“You are a wonderful organization, but you’re one of hundreds, if not thousands, that want government funds to assist them in doing what they started out doing probably without government funds,” Howard said.
Dykstra told lawmakers the nonprofit “runs very lean” and that 93 cents of every dollar goes toward feeding people. Feeding South Dakota has been operating for 50 years, primarily privately funded, and this is the first time leaders have requested state general funds, Andernacht said.
Lawmakers won’t take up the request until the 2026 legislative session starts in January.
“We felt it was the right time to put in front of the state the dollars that they could partner with us on to help fill that gap,” Andernacht said. “They have plenty of time to consider that, ask questions and get more information from us.”
The cuts came from the rollback of federal aid by the Trump administration, particularly programs begun during the COVID-19 pandemic to help the U.S. Department of Agriculture support food distribution. Feeding South Dakota spoke to the legislative budget committee in May about the cuts.
The nonprofit reduced its programs by up to 35% to address the federal loss, Dykstra told lawmakers. Reduced programs include its mobile pantry, wellness pantry and senior box programs, Dykstra said. Feeding South Dakota partners with the state to deliver U.S. Department of Agriculture food insecurity programs, like the senior box program, in South Dakota. Andernacht said the nonprofit has not reduced food provided in the backpack program for school children.
The group didn’t fill open positions and made cuts to technology to lessen the blow to food-insecure families.
“We did what we needed to Band-Aid the situation,” Dykstra added.
If the nonprofit doesn’t fill its gap in federal funding, she said, rural communities will be hit hardest, because they don’t have other resources like Sioux Falls and Rapid City do.
Sioux Falls Republican Sen. Larry Zikmund highlighted the amount of volunteerism Feeding South Dakota depends on to operate its programs, in addition to the funding.
“It’s very much needed,” Zikmund said, “and we need to look at seeing what we can do to help support them.”
