More than ever, next legislative session will require courage • South Dakota Searchlight

I’ve never been much good at political predictions. I knew George Mickelson as a tall guy I played volleyball against in the adult league in Brookings. While he was a force at the net, I didn’t think that qualified him to be governor. John Thune was unknown to me when he first ran for Congress. Certainly he didn’t stand a chance of winning a primary against Bill Jankow’s lieutenant governor. No one asked me to wager, but I would never have bet on Mike Rounds to win a three-man primary for governor.

While political races have proven impossible for me to predict, my crystal ball isn’t as foggy when it comes to forecasting what’s going to happen during a legislative session. Even this far out from the start of the 2025 session in January, I can tell that it’s going to be all about courage.

For years, the Legislature has been tip-toeing around the need to do something about the property tax system in South Dakota. A legislative summer study has just wrapped up its work trying to determine ways to make sure tax assessments are being handled in the same way across the state. Like former President Donald Trump, who admitted in a debate to having “concepts of a plan” to improve health care, the summer study offered “concepts” that might make assessments more uniform.

Those concepts are rooted in more cooperation, more education and nothing at all that citizens want to hear about when the topic is property taxes. According to a South Dakota Searchlight story, in the last decade property tax payments have increased nearly 60% for homes, 47% for commercial property and 28% for agricultural property.

Those property taxes aren’t just a burden for property owners, they’re a lifeline for local governments with 56% going to schools, 27% to counties, 13% to cities and the rest to various local taxing authorities. Consequently, any changes to the system have the potential to mess with local government budgets.

Some legislative candidates are running on a pledge to bring property tax relief. However, the issue needs more than one legislator with a plan. The problem is big enough and complex enough to require a study akin to Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s Blue Ribbon Task Force that studied teacher pay. That study resulted in a 2016 half-cent increase in the state sales tax with a portion of the money dedicated to increasing teacher pay.

That brings us to the other issue that will require legislative courage — how to raise teachers’ salaries. While the sales tax increase proposed by the Blue Ribbon panel dug South Dakota’s teacher pay out of the basement, inattention by the Legislature has allowed the state to fall back to 49th in national rankings.

This month, a South Dakota Searchlight story noted that not only were the state’s teacher salaries ranked near the bottom nationally, but teacher pay in this state has fallen by 7.6% over the past six years when adjusted for inflation. Lawmakers can’t continue to dodge the issue by falling back on the excuse that South Dakota has a low cost of living.

With many new lawmakers likely to be headed to Pierre after the election, the 2025 session may not be the best time to tackle large, complex issues. However, taxpayers are crying for relief. Teachers need more pay.

The mechanisms used to resolve those problems can’t be one-and-done. If Daugaard’s Blue Ribbon Task Force taught us anything, it’s that solutions need to be nurtured. Lawmakers didn’t pay enough attention to teacher pay and now the state ranks close to the bottom again.

The best solutions for property tax relief and higher teacher pay will be ones that keep tabs on those markets so that the Legislature can make the needed adjustments over time. Solutions like that will take study, innovation and plenty of courage.